


Corpsing

by Smiling_Seshat



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diplomacy, Fix-It, Multi, Realistic, Self-Insert, Social engineering, Thinking Before Acting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiling_Seshat/pseuds/Smiling_Seshat
Summary: An ordinary woman watching Legend of Korra finds herself in Korra's body in Republic City, at the start of the series.Only problem?She doesn't know how to bend.She has also barely finished watching the first episode and knows next to nothing about the world she's found herself in.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom doesn't really have any SI fics for me to read, so I decided to create my own!
> 
> Technically, this is an OC-Insert, but everyone treats 'Self-Insert' as a general term that means both Self-Insert and OC-Insert, and there wasn't any OC-Insert tag that I could find.
> 
> The OC is not me, and her opinions are not necessarily mine.

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C O R P S I N G

 

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Confused, she did nothing more than blink at first. She was sitting in an interrogation room faced with what should be a fictional character. And…  
  
One look at her hands confirmed it.  
  
_What the..._  
  
Different skin tone. This was definitively **not** her body.

 

.

 

 

.

 

Her eyes were wide. She could hear a high pitched ringing in her mind as her adrenalin levels soared.  
  
She’d been accused of many things in her life — being lazy, forgetful, clumsy — but one thing Diana Belikova was not, was slow to the uptake.  
  
Having read enough stories about people mysteriously ending up in fictional worlds, it was easy to realize what had happened.  
  
_What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE **FUCK** JUST HAPPENED—_  
  
_**No,**_ she told herself. _Calm down._  
  
_“You need to push your emotions away and hide them until no one can see them, Diana. The bullies are looking for a reaction, so don’t give them one. Panic is useless. When you feel scared, push your emotions away and analyze the situation. See what’s wrong and find a way to make it right again. Be calm and cool. Don’t let anything show on your face.”_  
  
Her mother’s words.  
  
Luckily, it seemed Lin Beifong hadn’t noticed anything unusual. She continued scolding the girl whose body Diana was wearing, happy to rant.  
  
The woman was interrupted by one of her policemen, who had come to announce the arrival of an old man. When the old man in question entered the room, Diana recognized him as the airbender that had been introduced earlier in the episode. What was his name again? Tenzai? Tenzo?  
  
Ugh. She was awful at remembering names. She’d probably forget Beifong’s too, in a few minutes. There was a reason her friends always joked that she was afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease, and it wasn’t a particularly flattering one. Maybe her bad memory was a sign of an unreliable brain, and could explain why she was seeing things that _weren’t making any sense._  
  
She was trembling. The emotions were so powerful that she wasn’t sure if they were fear or shock.  
  
_You need to push your emotions away and hide them until no one can see them, Diana._  
  
She had to remember her mother’s lessons. She coudn’t afford to have a panic attack here.  
  
Had she taken leave of her senses? Yet, if she had gone insane, then wouldn’t be asking this question, right? Insane people did not question their sanity, did they?  
  
“Lin,” said the airbender, “as beautiful as ever.”  
  
Beifong’s glare could have boiled him alive. “You can’t weasel out of this with a compliment, Tenzin.”  
  
Right! Tenzin was the man’s name.  
  
Diana wanted to laugh hysterically. She hadn’t remembered that name, so did that mean her brain was not making this all up?  
  
Tenzin had noticed something was amiss—he’d stopped glaring at Diana _(no she’s supposed to be Korra)_ and was looking ever so slightly worried.  
  
Diana straightened up and all traces of emotion left her face.  
  
_"Repress, repress… You’re cool, calm and collected. **Nothing** fazes you. Put your business face on and go win some new clients!"_  
  
_"You’re Diana from Audit, confident and strong, not Diana the nerd, weak and emotional. You’ll be the best in your department one day."_

“Why is the Avatar here?” Beifong continued. “She’s meant to be training in the South Pole. And you were _supposed_ to be there too and mentor her.”  
  
Well, Diana was quite confident that she’d be training in Republic City. Or at least, Korra would be. That was what the first half of the first episode had been building up to. However, while Diana had always secretly wished to be a protagonist of one of those fanfictions in which someone got to travel to their favourite fictional world, she was severely disappointed by what she’d been given.  
  
If she’d been given a choice, she would have gone for the fictional world of Harry Potter by J K Rowling. Maybe even Naruto by Kishimoto or Worm by Wildbow if she were feeling particularly adventurous.  
  
She wouldn’t have chosen Legend of Korra, mostly because she knew nothing about the show. She’d been half-way through the first episode when the ‘dimension travel’ took place, and the only things she knew about the series came from promotional posters and an AMV of Legend of Korra she’d once seen. And some fanfiction, too.  
  
So she had no knowledge of the future like a proper SI was meant to have, and Korra’s body hadn’t even had the courtesy to give her memories of how to bend the elements. As soon as Tenzin or anyone else realized their Avatar was ignorant of anything related to bending, there would be heavy suspicion falling on Diana.  
  
Why did she have to end up as Korra?  
  
Honestly, Diana was still half-convinced she was imagining everything and had simply fallen asleep on her sofa and starting dreaming about being the Avatar. But everything felt too real.  
  
Either she’d gone insane, or this was real. The second possibility felt much more appealing.  
  
She’d always dreaming of adventure, something more than her stressful job in audit and her dusty, empty apartment. When presented with such a dream, was it surprising Diana wanted to go along with it?  
  
Tenzin was speaking. “—and I had to come back to Republic City.” He frowned in Diana’s direction, who didn’t look as guilty as the real Korra would have. “However, the Avatar will be sent back to the South Pole. Immediately.”  
  
Diana twitched.  
  
She’d only watched one episode of the series, but she was pretty sure Korra was to stay in Republic City for the duration of the plot. Sarah, the woman who’d recommended the show to Diana, had given her a quick summary of the plot—Korra is the Avatar, a position that makes her the world’s peacekeeper and gives her the ability to control four elements when most people only control one, and the antagonist of Season One is some masked dude called Amen or something—and had shown Diana a promotional picture featuring the main cast. The cast in question consisted of Korra, two teens called Bowling and Mark, and this gorgeous young woman most of the internet shipped Korra with. Sally? Sammy? Her name was something along those lines.  
  
Basically, all Diana knew were the events of episode one and the appearance of some key characters whose names she hadn’t bothered to remember. What she was sure of was the fact that Korra was meant to spend several episodes in Republic City, where the antagonist was. Diana had no idea how long she’d be stuck in this body, but if Korra came back, she needed to be in Republic City for the plot to happen properly. She needed to convince Tenzin to let her stay.

 

 

“Lin,” Tenzin continued, “if you would be so kind as to drop the charges against Korra, I will pay for any damage she may have caused.”

Diana perked up, the beginnings of a plan forming in her mind.

“I suppose so,” said the policewoman with a sigh. “Very well—”

“I refuse.”

_If I go to the South Pole then the people who grew up with Korra will notice I’m not her._

Beifong frowned and looked over at Diana, while Tenzin’s expression grew quite exasperated.

“Avatar, are you suggesting you don’t want the charges dropped?” asked Beifong, incredulous.

Diana nodded with a hint of a smile. “You just scolded me for using my title as the Avatar to get out of trouble. You were right, you know. There shouldn’t be exceptions to the law, and you shouldn’t be playing favourites because I’m the Avatar. If you commit a crime, you have to face the consequences. If you use your rank to get out of trouble or if someone else assumes the consequences”—she nodded at Tenzin—“then you’ll never learn from your mistakes.”

There was a small amount of pride showing on Beifong’s face, though it was briskly replaced with her usual stern mien. “While it’s… admirable of you to say so, I highly doubt you have enough money to pay for the damages you have caused.”

Diana knew the true Korra had no money, but that did not matter, as her plan involved… something a little more subtle which would allow her to remain in the city.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” said Diana, “but I’m willing to do community service to make up for what I did.”

And to do community service, she couldn’t exactly return to the South Pole, now could she?

Unfortunately, Tenzin caught on immediately and protested. Loudly.

“No, Korra. You will be. Going. Back. Home.”

_Scheiße_. The plan had failed. How had the canonical Korra managed? Or might Diana be wrong, and were the events of the series meant to happen in the South Pole? But then, why introduce the City of the Republic if it was of no relevance?

“And whoever heard of an Avatar doing community service?” Tenzin scoffed. “The citizens’ first impression of you will be that of a common criminal responsible for destroying their property. The only way your reputation could sink lower is if you were in jail—”

“I’m already a common criminal!” exclaimed Diana, attempting to channel Korra’s temerarious personality. “I wrecked an entire street while I was trying to catch those men! And now you’re attempting to use your power to get me out of trouble! That looks worse than me doing community service! In one case I’m owning up to my mistakes and in the other you’re shielding me from consequences through nepotism!”

“N-nepotism?!” the man spluttered, face red.

“Nepotism is when someone in power favours their friends or family,” Diana continued, “and that’s exactly what you’re doing by asking Misses Beifong to forgive my mistakes and not let me atone!” 

Beifong was leaning against a wall, arms crossed as she listened. She was not getting involved in the argument.

As for Diana, she was rapidly running out of arguments to convince the airbender to allow her to stay. Hopefully he would give in soon, or she would have to resign herself to heading to the South Pole, which was full of people who had grown up around Korra and would realize immediately that she was an impostor. It wasn’t hard to imagine how badly they’d react when they realized.

“When your children break something, do they face consequences and get punished, or do you let them get away with it too?”

There. She had him. She could tell by the way his shoulders slumped and his face grew weary.

“Very well.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. He looked over at Beifong. “Lin, if you could ensure this doesn’t spread? I would like to keep the Avatar’s presence in the city a secret for now.”

“Why?” asked Diana.

“Because the last thing we need,” said Beifong, “is for the gangs to know the Avatar’s in the city. Every time we send more men out to patrol the streets, the criminals fight back. If they think the _Avatar_ is coming after them, they’ll feel cornered enough to mount a large attack. We don’t have the numbers to deal with that.”

The old man—Tenzo? Tensai?—looked like he half expected Diana to suddenly announce she didn’t fear any gangs and would in fact go beat them up right now. Since Korra and Diana were not the same person, Diana did not react as expected and instead remained perfectly still.

“I’ll have Saikhan give you some work,” continued Beifong, her expression much less stern than it had been at the start of the interrogation. However, Diana was still wildly uncomfortable with the situation she was in, and was pretty sure she was in shock. “Come over next week. It’ll give him time to create a schedule for your community service.”

Diana blinked. Her chin was trembling ever so faintly and she was doing her best to avoid catching sight of her hands. They were dark and rough, so different from the elegant and manicured ones she was used to. “Shouldn’t a judge be deciding that?”

Beifong shook her head. “Putting you in front of a judge would mean giving out your identity. Everyone would know the Avatar’s in the area within a few hours.”

“I’ll have her brought back Monday morning,” said Tenzo. He looked at Diana. “Korra, we’re leaving now.”

Diana nodded and turned to Beifong. “Thank you for everything.” She paused, gnawing on the inside of her cheek as her adrenalin levels spiked again. “Do you have any toilets here?”

The woman pointed at the door. “Go to the end of the hall and turn left. The lavatories are the first door you’ll see.”

Diana gave a bland, polite smile. “Thank you. I hope next time we meet will be under better circumstances.”

“Agreed,” said the policewoman.

Diana followed Ten-whatshisname out of the room, and then sped ahead of him.

“Korra, wait!” he shouted.

But she was already throwing open the door to the washroom and entering the first stall in sight. She could hear Tenzo following her.

Diana got down on her knees and finally allowed herself to vomit.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Seeing Diana throw up had softened Tenzo’s disposition. He held her hair back _(Korra’s hair)_ while she expelled a mix of fish meat and bile, offering meaningless reassurances in a soothing tone.

“I should have known something was off,” he said. “You looked out of it but I thought Lin was the reason why. I should have remembered that you don’t get intimidated easily.”

He was rubbing her back in a comforting manner. The kind of fatherly behaviour Diana hadn’t witnessed in years, back home. She’d been an office worker, only social when it came to clients and colleagues, and even then it was feigned, a mask to hide her natural introverture. She wasn’t used to being soothed like a child. In public it would have been patronizing, but as it was she didn’t mind relaxing and enjoying it while there were no witnesses.

Diana dry-heaved a few times, her stomach desperate to push out contents that were no longer there.

“It’ll be all right,” Tenzo _(Tensai? Tenzin?)_ was saying. “Shhhhh… Shhhhh… That’s it, nearly over.”

You could tell he was a father.

Still, as soon as she felt better, Diana pushed his hand away. She was an adult and capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much. While she didn’t hate physical touch, she was uncomfortable with such behaviour from a complete stranger. _(Even if to the real Korra, this man was not a stranger.)_

“Come on,” said the man, helping Diana up, “Let’s find Naga. Then I’ll take you to the compound for some food and rest.”

He politely pretended to not notice how quickly she shrugged his hand off when she was standing.

“Thanks,” she croaked, face still white and sickly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he grumbled. “I haven’t forgotten the stunt you pulled back in there. Nepotism, really? Did you swallow a dictionary on your way here? Lin may be inclined to believe you, but I’ve seen you try to weasel your way out of punishments before, Korra. Don’t think I won’t send you back to the South Pole as soon as you’re done with your community service.”

_He saw through me. Greaaaat._

“You’re too smart for your own good, Tenzo,” said Diana unhappily.

“Ten _zin_ ,” he corrected pointedly.

Diana couldn’t help it - she tensed. _He noticed my mistake. I’m done for._

Tenzin clearly wasn’t suspecting a body-snatcher from another dimension, because all he did was put his hand on Diana’s forehead.

He frowned.

“Hmmm… No fever, but you’re clearly sick and not behaving quite right. Let’s get you back so you can have some rest.”

He was _such_ a dad. It almost made Diana long for her childhood, when things were simpler.

As it was, she simply relaxed, happy he wasn't demanding to know who she was and what she had done to Korra.

Tenzin kept his hand hovering near Diana’s back as they went to the pound to retrieve Korra’s dog, ready to intervene if necessary. He was so caring it was almost surprising. Diana couldn’t remember the last time someone had behaved like that with her. For years she’d been such a workaholic that friendship or romance was pushed to the side, until she had trouble making any real friends, too busy to maintain new relationships.

Tenzin had still not realized Diana was not who she appeared to be.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Naga, the strange hybrid of a dog and a polar bear that served as a pet and companion for Korra, didn’t notice anything was wrong either. It wasn’t surprising, considering dogs used primarily their sense of smell, and that was the only thing Diana’s presence in Korra’s body had not changed.

Fear, however, was something Naga could detect. The dog _(Bear? Hybrid? Man-eating beast???)_ made constant little whining sounds after being released from the pound, rubbing against Diana.

Tenzin didn’t say anything — he must have assumed the dog could sense Korra’s ‘illness’ and was trying to comfort her.

Diana was not a dog person. The only thing she did was scratch Naga’s ear and then stay still as the **enormous** beast whined at her, showing off its large fangs. The size of the dog didn’t help Diana’s stress at all.

She was in a strange city, in a strange body, with a strange old man and a strange breed of dog.

The whole situation was making her anxious.

After going to the pound, they all went on a ship to head over to Tenzin’s home. Republic City was set next to a large body of water. It looked like it had been built on a bay, though Diana couldn’t tell if it was set by an abnormally large lake, or by a sea or ocean. There were two islands from what she could see — one held a large statue of a bald man looking over the city in a way that reminded her of the Statue of Liberty, and the other island was where Tenzin’s home was, a large compound the size of a small university campus.

When they arrived, the were immediately greeted by three cute children and a pregnant woman.

Right, those people had appeared at the start of the episode. They were Tenzin’s children and wife, weren’t they? Well, Tenzin looked a bit old so maybe the three little ones were his grandchildren.

Ugh. She would have been taking notes during the episode if she’d known she would need the information.

“Korraaaaa!” the three children shouted gleefully, running at her.

The bald boy threw himself in her arms with such strength that she staggered, and the two girls came to hug her waist. All of the momentum slammed into her at once, and she fell down on her backside with a grunt of pain.

Did these infants not know the meaning of moderation?!

With a smile that did not reach her eyes, Diana attempted to play her role. “Hello childre—”

“Did’ya sneak out to come see us?!” the little boy yelled. “Are you gonna stay with us forever?!”

“Did Father change his mind about training you?” one of the girls asked.

“D’you wanna come see my room?” the other one asked.

They were all assaulting Diana with questions to the point that her eyes were starting to twitch.

 

 

_“Diana, honey, will I ever have any grandchildren?”_

_“Probably not, mum.”_

_“Whyever not, dearie?”_

_“Because dumb, rude children that scream all the time are not what I see in my future.”_

_“Surely you don’t believe that. Having children is such a gratifying experience.”_

 

 

Diana was beginning to have violent thoughts about these three annoyances.

“Well,” she told the children with the same smile she used to win new clients, “I came to the city because I really wanted to learn airbending. It seems so impressive, you see, and when Tenzin said I couldn’t I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

Tenzin was looking a bit surprised.

_Shit. Act more like Korra and less like me._

“And no one tells me want to do!” she exclaimed, puffing out her chest and trying to look like a shonen anime protagonist. “So now I’m here and I’m gonna learn how to be the awesomest Avatar ever!”

It was physically painful for her to say ‘awesomest’, but it made Tenzin’s suspicious glance disappear, so it was worth it. From what Diana had seen, Korra was essentially a slightly less dumb version of Naruto Uzumaki, at the beginning of the Naruto series. Korra was an 'act first' kind of person with a 'think after (but it's totally optional)' mindset. As long as she kept that in mind when acting and talking like a teenager, things would be fine.

Huh. How did teenagers talk nowadays anyway? What if the slang had evolved? What if teenagers talked differently in this Avatar-world?

Hey.... Wait a second.... What if Korra was in Diana's body right now, forced to pretend to be Diana?

Diana was going to lose her job if that was the case, because there was _no way_ Korra had the necessary knowledge to do the job right on top of acting like Diana. And if Korra started talking about bending and being the Avatar in front of Diana's coworkers or God-forbid, a client _,_ then Diana's career would be over. She would be _institutionalized_.

_Fuuuuuuuuuuu—_

"Come on, children, leave Korra alone," Tenzin said upon noticing Diana's pale face. "She's had a rather trying day and she's sick. She needs to get some rest and you three need to stay away from her so you don't catch anything."

There was a chorus of disappointed groans, yet the children did not get off Diana. She tried nudging them away, but they clung to her like leeches.

"Korra will still be there tomorrow," said the pregnant woman. She turned to Diana. "I'm so glad to see you, Korra. How long will you be staying?"

"Korra," said Tenzin with the kind of tone all misbehaving children feared, "will be staying until she has finished her community service, and then she will be heading back home."

"What's community service?" asked the little boy, pressing up against Diana.

_Ew, he smells. Aren't they supposed to be potty trained at that age?_  
  
"Community service is a non-paying job performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions," answered one of the girls with the tone of an adult lecturer. If she had a pair of glasses, she would've been a stereotypical bookworm. The girl paused, head tilted. "Why would Korra be doing community service in the first place?"

Tenzin gave an aggravated sigh. "I'll tell you inside. Please get off Korra before I make you."

The two girls let go of Diana willingly enough, but the boy just clung tighter and began chanting like a toddler in the middle of his Terrible Twos:

"Don't wanna! Don't wanna! Don't wanna!"

_And to think, mum, you wanted me to give you grandchildren. I am very happy to never have to deal with this kind of thing **ever again**.  
_

 

-x-x-x-

 

Diana spent her first two days on the Air Temple Island as a figurative ghost. She stayed in her room, ruminating on her situation and brooding. She didn’t leave the building.

While works of fiction about people being thrown into other worlds sounded interesting in theory, living it was much more nerve-wracking. Diana was having trouble dealing with it all.

The easiest solution would be to feign retrograde amnesia. Use it as an explanation for why she knew absolutely nothing, be it bending or the names of the people Korra knew. However, Diana had studied enough psychology to know that retrograde amnesia was rare, and caused by something such as a sickness, a hard hit to the cranium, a psychologically-scarring event or the use of drugs.

None of those had happened to Diana’s body - to Korra - and so her amnesia would be downright implausible.

Diana didn’t know enough about the Avatar world to know if possession existed, but if it did, then “Korra’s” sudden amnesia and personality change would hint at possession rather obviously. People might react badly at the thought of their precious Avatar being possessed, understandably.

Diana’s time spent brooding in her room was interpreted as a lasting sickness by Tenzin and his family. They left her in peace, though Tenzin’s wife Pema did come over to bring some delicious home-cooked meals for Diana. Quite a lot of vegetables, starches, fruits, nuts and cereals. Diana had a suspicion that Pema was a vegetarian or Korra herself was meant to be one, but did not ask about it in case she was expected to have known it already.

During the day, Diana would glare out the window, trying to make plans and remember the little tidbits of information she knew about Legend of Korra. At night, she would climb out of her window and onto the roof.

She would sit there for hours, staring at the stars. They were much brighter than she was used to. Back home, the city lights made it hard for you to see anything smaller than the moon in the night sky. Sometimes Diana would see a star only for it to move, revealing itself as a distant airplane.

The sky in Republic City was different. It was reminiscent of online pictures, so full of stars that they had either been photographed somewhere rural, or simply photoshopped into existence.

The inspired in Diana a sort of distant shock that kept her quiet throughout the night, watching the stars in awe. Whenever her current situation became too much to handle, a glimpse of the sky would assure her that everything was very real.

Even under the dominion of the sun, the sky was recognizably alien. There were no long smoky trails left by planes, creating ephemeral grids in the sky.

Diana was used to adapting to all kinds of situations. She had accepted her current situation relatively quickly, realizing what had happened nearly immediately. That still wasn’t enough to erase the emotion she would feel whenever she saw her now tanned skin, solid muscles and young, so very young, face.

It was probably incredibly petty that what she mourned the most was not the fact that she had no way to contact her friends and family back home, or that her cat would probably die of starvation in her flat before anyone noticed she was missing.

No, what she mourned the most, out of all things, was her hair.

She used to have a beautiful mane of hair reaching mid-thigh that she’d spent years growing, using all kinds of oils and conditioners to keep strong and hale. It would tangle so quickly that sometimes it could take an entire half hour for her to brush through it all. Every morning, she’d tie it up in an intricate braid to keep it from tangling and getting in her face, a different braid every day, and would secretly enjoy all the compliments people would pay her at work while outwardly staying modest. Her hair was her one vanity, the one thing she allowed herself to be frivolous and obsessive about.

And now it was _gone_.

The hair of young Korra, whose body Diana had inadvertently taken over, was short and full of split ends. It tore up Diana’s soul that not only had she lost the long hair she’d spent near a decade growing, but now she was stuck with the hair of a tomboy who clearly couldn’t have cared less about its upkeep.

Yes, it was incredibly shallow to care about something of such minor consequence, but it _still_ mattered to her.

To make the situation worse, while Diana had her own memories, she possessed Korra’s muscle memory instead of her own. So whenever she’d brush her fingers through her hair, her brain would tell her her hair was much too short while her body would tell her nothing was amiss.

For someone whose only physical sign of vanity was her hair, it was horrifying.

Tonight was her second night on the island where Tenzo, his wife and three kids lived (as well as numerous monks and guards nobody had bothered introducing Diana to) and Diana spent it exactly like her first - on the roof, staring at the sky. She let her mind wander, back to when things were more simple.

Diana had been a proud autonomous adult back home. She’d been a Senior Manager in a reputed firm. The promotion had been recent and at quite a young age, too, which had made her insanely happy, until she’d discovered a few things that had made her pride take a hit. Nevertheless, she’d been a very well-paid career woman who had been living in a cramped flat in order to put money to the side to buy a beautiful lakeside estate.

No significant other and few close friends, mostly because she had sacrificed her free time for her career, but that was something she had little regret about. She’d always been a little too blunt and bad at keeping contact for true friendship to exist.

“Korra?”

Diana looked over.

It was Tenzin, the bald airbender meant to be Korra’s teacher. He was standing on the path passing right by the window of Diana’s bedroom, and had somehow known she’d be awake despite the late - or extremely early, according to some - hour of the night.

"What is it?" she asked, feeling the tension go up. Every tme she had to talk to one of these people, she got nervous. The fear of revealing her true identity by accident scared her. She wanted to tell them, but at the same time she was still having doubts about her sanity, and didn't want others to think the same about her mental state. So for now, she would say Nothing. Maybe use the amnesia excuse, if pressed.

"Do you think you feel well enough to join Pema and I? We are playing cards now that the children are finally asleep."

Tenzin was _trying_. He had no idea what was wrong with 'Korra' and he was trying to be as respectful as possible. He didn't pry and he'd been very polite so far. Diana suspected he'd realized something was off about her, but he had yet to say anything.

"...Sure," she answered.

Encouraged by her response, he added, "I know that you are only here for your community service, but that won't start until Monday. Would you like to join me for some training tomorrow? I can teach you the basics of air-bending, if you'd like."

He was clearly aiming for a positive reaction, a way to make 'Korra' perk up.

Diana did her best. She plastered a smile on her face, straightened her back and agreed with enhousiasm. "I'd love to!"

She couldn't mope around forever. If she was stuck here, might as well make the best of it.

Diana just hoped he wouldn't expect her to show off any bending of the remaining three elements Korra was meant to know. She had no idea how to do the magic Kung Fu everyone else used.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Replicating Korra's hairstyle was impossible. Diana tried several times, but getting the ponytail to stand up right never worked. It always slumped down like a dead limb, incapable of reproducing the cartoon physics of the real Korra's hairstyle. In the end, Diana got so frustrated that she decided to just give up and let the hair flow freely.

This was probably only going to make her seem even more suspicious. At this rate, people would realize she wasn't Korra within a few days.

She dressed in the same kind of orange clothes Tenzin and his family seemed to favour and left her room.

Tenzin was waiting for her in the courtyard, without any of his children.

"Ah, there you are," he exclaimed upon noticing her. "Come, let us begin training."

She followed him, glancing around curiously as she did so. She hadn't left her room much since her arrival, and it was interesting to look at the compound. The architecture was distinctively Asian, and reminded her of some temples she had seen in Beijing. As for the people, her gaze focused on all the people that weren't dressed in orange, the ones who seemed to keep their eyes on her.

Tenzin noticed. "You'll have to forgive me," he said dryly. "I asked them to guard the island so that you don't try to run away once your community service is over."

What would Korra have answered?

Diana tried to imagine a brash teenage protagonist and answered as best she could, "I wouldn't run!"

Tenzin didn't say anything, but his expression was one of muted disbelief.

"Here we are," he said as they stopped near the edge of the island. There was a cliff not even ten metres away, and a small structure consisting of four pillars holding up a roof with a curve recognizable as the kind found in hold Chinese and Japanese buildings. She was reasonably sure that was a pagoda roof, though she could be using the wrong term. It looked like the kind of structure a couple would stand under to get a picture, or like a small shrine without walls.

"What will we be doing?" asked Diana. She almost immediately cringed right after, wondering if that was a question Korra would have known the answer to.

It didn't seem to pose a problem, as Tenzin answered politely enough:

"We will begin by meditating. Considering how sick you've been, I thought it best to start with something relatively easy and not too strenuous." He paused. "I've been told that you've never managed even the slightest gust of wind, correct?"

Diana had absolutely no idea.

"Correct," she answered with a smile.

Oh. Wait. Korra would've been insulted by that last comment, wouldn't she?

"But I can do anything I set my mind to!" she continued with exagerated confidence.

Tenzin rolled his eyes. "We'll see about that."

Diana was instructed to sit on the stone floor next to Tenzin, under the roof of the shrine. She was facing the cliff and the waters beyond, eyes closed closed as they meditated.

Tenzin's instructions had been a bit vague. 'Be free like the air', really?

Diana wasn't even sure she could use the magical martal arts that were so popular in this world. She knew that it was something you were born with, or else Pema wouldn't have talked about wanting 'a normal child' at the start of the first episode. However, Diana had no idea if these powers were biological or spiritual. If they were biological, then that meant Diana could learn how to airbend. If they were spiritual, then without Korra's soul it was unlikely that Diana would manage.

She really hoped she'd be able to bend, or this charade wouldn't last.

The meditation lasted over an hour. At first Diana tried to imagine herself as a gentle breeze, free from the constraints of gravity and able to go wherever she wanted. When that didn't produce any results, she switched to imagining herself as a bird. No matter how much she tried, nothing happened.

Of course, she didn't allow herself to get angry. Anger wasn't helpful to meditation, and she wanted results ore than she wanted to rage at how difficult this was.

All she had to do was think about this logically. Air, Tenzin had explained, was about freedom and flexibility. It was all about moving out of the way of obstacles instead of facing them head-on.

If she thought about airbending as an obstacle, then instead of trying the same thing again and again with minor changes, such as imagining herself as a breeze or a bird, she should deal with the problem from another angle.

So instead, she thought about her current situation. She was, for all intents and purposes, caged in a prison of foreign flesh and trapped in a role she didn't want. The despair that knowledge filled her with had been permeating her for a while now.

She let go of the despair, let go of the hopelessness, and tried to think of her situation differently. She would not have to go back to her job, to her friendless life. She was in a world that cherished her because Korra was special, and she was a child so she wouldn't have to worry about taxes and rent and bills. Adults were taing care of her and shouldering the responsability. There was something incredibly freeing about the knowledge that as a teenager, Diana could now do a lot more and any mistakes would be excused as errors of youth.

And it was with those thoughts of freedom that Diana managed to summon a strong gust of wind for the very first time.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Community service sucked.

Diana had expected to maybe have to pick up trash in the street or something. She hadn't had a specific idea in mind, mostly because she'd never had to do community service in the first place.

Instead, she was firmly stuck inside the police station, in charge of filing papers and delivering coffee as though she were an intern again.

It seemed that Saikhan, who was in charge of her punishment, had decided that the term 'community service' meant 'servicing the police'. She spent most of her time walking from desk to desk delivering things, or she was kept somewhere with mindless busywork to do.

She'd been given excuses for why she was kept inside, but she knew lies when she heard them. 'We can't have the city know you're here because it would rile up the gangs' was the worst excuse she had _ever_ heard. If they really believed that, then the police force would be completely covert to avoid scaring those poor, trigger-happy criminals into violence.

The real reason she was kept away from the public eye was probably to make it easier for them to make her leave the city once her community service was over. The Avatar, from what Diana understood, was some sort of title that automatically made you a celebrity. Kind of a 'Boy-Who-Lived' type of title, except without the terrorist that wanted to overthrow the government and kill her. Probably. So if someone famous like Avatar was known to be in Republic City by the citizens, there would probably be questions if she was forced to leave very soon after. If the Avatar was as famous a title as Diana suspected, then the people living in Republic City would be outraged if she were forced back to the South Pole. They'd want her to stay.

It was either that, or Tenzin was so convinced Diana was going to escape her punishment that he'd asked Saikhan to have her around policemen constantly.

Diana liked to believe the real reason was the former one, not the latter. It soothed her ego.

"Got your tea," she announced cheerily, setting the plate down on Officer Tano's desk without making the cup tremble.

Despite being annoyed with what she had to do, Diana wasn't backing out of her promise and was trying to take her punishment with grace. Korra had to be held accountable for her actions, even if Diana has only proposed community service as a way to force Tenzin to keep her in the city. Now that Diana had had the time to think about it a bit more, she'd realized that her arguments for community service on the day of her arrival were more true than she'd thought. She'd been trying to find the arguments that would stab at Tenzin's logic and emotional core, and hadn't realized she'd found something true.

The truth?

It _had_ been a case of nepotism.

Tenzin had been trying to use his influence to get Korra out of trouble, and that was wrong. Diana often cheated and lied in her daily life and didn't have a particularly strong moral core, but she would never run from the consequences if she were to commit a crime. That was just _wrong_.

Officer Tano looked up from his work and smiled at Diana. "Thank you very much, Korra."

On the first day, he'd called her 'Avatar Korra'. His almost subserviant behaviour towards her had made her deeply uncomfortable. It didn't help that he wasn't the only one on the force who looked at her like the second coming of Jesus Christ.

She had insisted he just call her Korra _(Diana, my name's **Diana** )_ and he'd taken it as a sign that the illustrious Avatar herself had deigned to befriend him. He was nice... but still _very_ weird. Quite polite, though.

Tano was also very talkative. During the first two days of her community service, he'd talked a lot about his job, how ambitious he was about his career (while procrastinating when it came to his work), and how he was an earth-bender and he was struggling to metal-bend so he could get a metal-bending mastery and get promoted and _oh Avatar, could you help me out with my bending?_

She'd politely declined, of course, saying she was too busy. There was no way she would be telling him she'd never done any earth-bending. She'd tried meditating in her room at Tenzin's house during the evenings and thought of things like rocks and fire and water, but those elements didn't seem to come out as easily as air. The emotions needed for the right element to come out were probably different, and the only thing Diana knew was that air was about being free. What was earth-bending about? Being dirty?

So yeah, she'd told him no. Besides, it was a bit strange that a man in his mid-thirties was acting like a teenager could teach him anything.

"Do you need anything else?" she asked, ensuring the skin at the edges of her eyes was wrinkled so her smile would look genuine.

He blinked a few times, as if coming out of a daze, and managed to tear his eyes away from the magnificient all-powerful Avatar long enough to look down at the papers he was holding. He hurriedly bundled them up, treating the papers much more carelessly than Diana would ever have dared, and handed them over to her.

She took the papers and tried to smooth them over without being too obvious about it.

"Can you destroy these for me?" he asked. "The shredder's blocked again, and these papers are too important to just be thrown out as they are."

"Oh. Sure." Diana nodded obediently. "Do you have a pair of scissors?"

Tano frowned. "Why?"

"To... cut the papers up? What else?"

He was a bit thick. Sure, she could rip the papers up with her hands, but there were about thirty pages and that would take too long. She'd also be highly likely to receive a papercut, which would keep her annoyed for the rest of the day.

Tano's frown deepened. "Korra, how about you just burn the papers. _With your bending."_

 

 

 

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu—_

 

 

 

"Korra? Are you all right?"

He leaned forward, glancing at her face uneasily.

"Korra?" he repeated.

 

 

 

_FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—_

 

 

 

Tano looked ever so worried, the poor man. His precious Avatar Korra _(notKorranotKorranotKorranotKorraNOT KORRA—)_ was twitching alarmingly.

She took a deep breath. Choked on it.

"Erm... Well, as the Avatar I have a lot of power and responsability, you know? So... err... my teachers had me promise to only ever use my bending to protect people, and not for frivolous things, so that I never forget that my powers are only for peace-keeping, and nothing else."

Tano was looking very awed. "That's a wise thing to do. I don't think I could stop myself from my bending for the little things, you know? It makes life very easy, so it's difficult to abstain. But you're the Avatar so of course—" He grabbed the papers, taking them a bit too forcefully from Diana. "—I'll just take care of this myself."

Diana's smile was so strained that Tano finally noticed it. He took it as a reprimand, though.

"I won't bother you with this sort of thing again," he told her earnestly. "I'm sorry."

"No problem."

That was too close.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

It was Friday evening. Diana had now been in a fictional universe for nine days, and had spent five of those doing community service. She'd adjusted as well as possible, considering the circumstances, and had spent most of her time trying to glean information about the world from various sources. She'd gotten police officers to chat with her, asking them about the most dangerous current threats. The response mostly seemed to be organized crime.

Diana was starting to get an idea of who the antagonist of Legend of Korra was. It was most likely some sort of mob boss.

Having read enough books by Roberto Saviano to know how dangerous the mafia could be, she'd been attending Tenzin's air-bending lessons like her life depended on it. She'd need some way to defend herself, and air-bending seemed like her best bet.

She'd been pestering Tenzin about more lessons for a while as a result. They'd only meditated together a few times, but as soon as her community service started, he'd abruptly remembered hat she'd tricked him into staying in the city, and getting him to teach her had been much harder after that.

Now, after much begging, he'd finally agreed to teach her the next air-bending lesson. That meant she would no longer have to meditate alone in her room every night, trying to perform impressive bending-moves with her brain.

So immediately after the children had been put to bed, Tenzin had taken her outside and asked her to follow him to a training area.

"Where are we going?" she asked Tenzin.

They were walking towards a more forested area where Tenzin's children liked to play.

"Here," he said, and stopped.

He was looking at an open area, in the middle of which was a circular zone filled with beautifully-decorated wooden pannels. All of the pannels were standing straight, taller than Diana by two or three heads, and facing in various random directions.

Seated on the side were two guards. They were lounging on a bench that was set against the wall of one of the houses of the compound. Just above them was an open window with a radio set on it, with the loud voice of a sports commentator. The guards were listening to it while keeping a lazy eye on Diana. Clearly, the fact that she hadn't even attempted to escape meant the guards no longer had to be as cautious, and they were slowly beginning to lower their guards.

"Until now," Tenzin explained, "I have been teaching you how to meditate as I do. It was a purely mental exercise. Now, you will be doing something that mixes both the physical and the mental, so you can learn how an air-bender moves."

He held his hands like he was cupping something large and spherical, and thrust them forth. A strong wind came out and shot through the pannels, making them all spin.

"Now watch," he said.

Immediately, he ran towards the pannels and started spinning, weaving and moving mongst the pannels without touching any of them, and arriving safely on the other side without knocking into one of the thirty or so moving obstacles.

"That was amazing!" Diana exclaimed.

For once, her enthousiasm wasn't faked.

Tenzin looked very proud of himself as he went through the whole obstacle course again to come back to Diana. He was clearly showing off this time.

"It was nothing," he said with false modesty. "Now it's your turn. You must behave like you weigh nothing, and the slightest breeze can change your path, so that you move with the pannels instead of against them."

Diana looked at the madly spinning pannels with hesitation.

"Can I look at how it moves a bit first?" she asked.

Tenzin looked surprised. "Thinking before acting? Well you are certainly growing up."

A chill crept up her spine.

She stuck out her tongue at him, trying her best to channel her inner teenager. "Don't worry, I'm still not as old as you."

Tenzin rolled his eyes. "Yes yes, I'm as old as dirt and I'm no fun. My children tell me that every day. I don't need _you_ adding to it." He flicked a finger towards the pannels. "Now go."

Diana approached the obstacle course and tried to look at with an analytical perspective. The pannels were spinning at different speeds, and Tenzin's gust of wind had been aimed at the middle, so the pannels to the right were spinning clockwise and the ones to the left were going in the other direction.

She circled around the contraption, trying to map out the position of the pannels. By coincidence, that brought her closer to the guards, and the radio they were listening to.

"—I'm sorry, folks," the sports commentator was saying, "it seems that Hasook is a no-show tonight! And without a water-bender, the Fire Ferrets cannot play. That makes this match an automatic win for the Platypus Bears!"

Too busy focusing on her air-bending lesson, Diana didn't bother paying much attention to the commentary of a sport she knew nothing about. She was only interested in beating the exercise and learning how to air-bend.

 

.

 

.

 

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	2. Chapter 2

 

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.

 

.

 

On Saturday morning, Diana woke early to do some jogging with Naga.  
  
The dog was still as large and frightening as ever, but Diana was starting to get used to it. During the hours spent working at the police office, she hadn't been allowed to bring a dog along so she had a good excuse to avoid the gigantic pet. but during the evenings, she often had to visit Korra's dog and spend time with it so that no one would get suspicious. After all, diana had gotten the impression that Korra and Naga were very close, so it would have been strange if she didn't spend time with the dog.  
  
That didn't mean she had to like it.  
  
As a child she'd been attacked by a dog and viciously bitten. She had needed stitches, and the scar had never truly faded.  
The worst thing? The dog had been a terrier. Some cute little innocent-looking dog had viciously mauled her and ever since that attack, she'd been afraid of dogs. She didn't have a phobia, but she did have quite a lot of caution.  
  
So no she'd gotten used to spending time with Naga. Today they were jogging together around the island, in an effort to stay fit. Korra's body was in very good shape, with a bit of definition around the muscles. Diana didn't know how to keep that, as she'd never been very interested in fitness and had been gifted with good genetics that meant her body looked good no matter how badly she ate.  
  
The water of the bay was too cold for her to go swimming, but jogging was a good physical exercise, and a perfect activity for her to bond with Naga.  
  
As for Naga... well, the dog had been mothering Diana ever since her arrival in this place. Naga could sense Diana's fear and had been trying to cuddle up to her reassuringly. It hadn't really worked, as a beast of that size could never look anything but frightening in Diana's eyes, but at least the dog didn't seem to be suspicious.  
  
Naga, like animal characters in Disney, appeared to be sentient to some extent. She was much smarter than an ordinary dog, and seemed to understand every one of Diana's words. In a world where people could control the elements, it didn't seem to be particularly strange that animals could be sentient. Legend of Korra was a cartoon, after all, and it was common to have highly intelligent animals in cartoons.  
  
"C'mon, girl!"  
  
Naga had decided to stop and sniff at the air. Diana continued jogging while staying in the same spot, not willing to take a break just yet.  
  
"Naga?"  
  
The dog was looking at the wooden quay, where a boat had just stopped. A figure was leaving the vessel and making their way towards the compound.  
  
With a loud bark, Naga ran down to investigate.  
  
"You are such a pain," Diana grumbled, half-hoping Naga's sharp ears would hear the comment.  
  
Only slightly annoyed, Diana followed Korra's dog down near the boat. Naga seemed well-behaved, but Diana didn't want to take the chance the dog might attack this visitor.  
  
Luckily, all Naga did was sniff the visitor curiously while Diana ran to catch up.  
  
The person in question was a man. He looked rather bland, with brown hair and brown eyes and a moustache, but his clothes made him stand out. He looked like he came from the late nineteenth century, with smart clothes and a bowler hat. He was also holding some sort of old-fashioned camera in front of him like a shield, glancing at the dog warily. All in all, he wouldn't look out of place in a steampunk setting.  
  
"I'm sorry about my dog," Diana said, pulling Naga back and failing to make the massive dog move even the slightest bit. She smiled politely at the man. "Do you need anything?"  
  
The man tipped his hat politely, looking at her orange clothes with intense focus. "I was investigating rumours about the presence of the Avatar at councilman Tenzin's home." He smiled."I presume I have found her. Miss...?"  
  
Disarmed by his polite tone and cute smile, Diana promptly answered, "Di—Korra. I'm Korra, the Avatar."  
  
And it was only as she answered that she remembered, _Oh, right, Tenzin didn't want my presence in the city to be made public._  
  
The man's flirty smile suddenly became smarmy, as he took a step forward and invaded Diana's personal space.  
  
"Perfect!" he exclaimed. "I'm with the Daily Herald. Could I trouble you with an interview?"

_What am I supposed to do?_  
 _  
_Diana gave a polite smile.  
  
"Why don't you come inside with me so you can meet Tenzin? Then I could ask permission to pause my training so I can hear what you have to say."  
  
Due to her job, Diana had had to deal with journalists before, as well as various important figures. She didn't have a perfect poker face, but she was very good at coming up with lies on the spot.  
  
She didn't need to ask Tenzin for permission to pause training because he was barely training her as it was, insisting it would be useless because she'd be leaving Republic City soon anyway. However, there was no way Diana would face a journalist alone and risk having her words twisted. Tenzin would decide whether this man should be sent back where he came from or not.  
  
"Ah, that's kind of you," said the man. His pleasant facade had cracked and Diana could now see that he was annoyed she'd seen through him.  
_  
Ha! Take that, you paparazzi!_  
  
Naga barked happily, completely oblivious to the tension.  
  
With another completely fake smile, Diana gestured for the man to follow her and headed back to the compound. There was an awkward silence and the journalist pointedly didn't say anything. Diana recognized it as a cheap psychological trick meant to make her uncomfortable enough to fill the silence and say something. She was not stupid enough to open her mouth and give him anything that could be used against her.  
  
Diana passed in front of as many guards as possible to ensure everyone was well aware of the presence of the journalist, so he couldn't pull a fast one. None of the guards were smart enough to ask her who the journalist was or to go warn Tenzin.  
  
She found Tenzin eating a light meal in the dining room with one of his daughters. Diana still didn't know the names of Tenzin's children, and figured she'd need a way to discreetly get their names without showing her ignorance.  
  
Tenzin looked at Diana and the journalist in confusion.  
  
"Korra?" he asked. "What...? Who...?"  
  
"This is a journalist from the Daily Herald," she said quickly, not giving the journalist a chance to answer. "He wanted to interview me but didn't set up a meeting in advance." She shrugged, looking completely neutral despite the rebuke she'd just aimed at the journalist. "And considering all the work you are having me do, I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take a break to speak with this man."  
  
She had just hinted that she was busy. It wasn't really true, but it would ease the sting of rejection if no interview happened and make it less likely the journalist would hold a grudge and write a hit-piece.  
  
Having the press hate you when you were the protagonist and the 'Chosen One' was a bad idea.  
  
"I'd heard rumours—" the journalist said in an attempt at justification.  
  
Unfortunately, Tenzin's face was already turning red with anger.  
  
"You did not receive permission to come to my home," he spat. "Arriving on the island without prior permission is trespassing."  
  
The journalist's smarmy smile made a reappearance. "Now, now, no laws were broken. I simply wanted an inteview with the Avatar—"  
  
"There will be no interview!" Tenzin shouted. His daughter was starting to edge away, looking uncomfortable.  
  
_Fuck,_ Diana thought. _This is exactly how you shouldn't act with the media. I can sense the hit piece coming._  
  
The journalist was like a shark that had sensed blood.  
  
"The public has a right to know what the Avatar is doing in this city, and I will be writing about—"  
  
That was when Diana decided it was time to minimize the damage. Tenzin was obviously incompetent, so it was time for Diana to show off her PR skills.  
  
"Of course sir," Diana told the journalist, shamelessly interrupting him. "But Tenzin likes his space, and it's completely understandable that he'd be unhappy someone came to his home unnanounced. And of course, you knew that just showing up meant that the chances I'd be available for an interview would be very low. After all, I might already have plans."  
  
She wasn't asking him any questions — she was telling him his reasoning and giving him an excuse. It was highly unlikely this had been his real reasoning when coming to this island, but it was important to lower the tension, so a few suggestions that made both the journalist and Tenzin look good were the best possible solution to the argument.  
  
The journalist was already nodding along without even realizing it, and Tenzin, while still looking angry, was no longer shouting. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.  
  
"I'm still settling in," Diana continued, "and I've been doing hard work under Tenzin's direction." That was deliberately vague. It could mean she was getting trained in air-bending or something else. She was keeping it open to interpretation because she had no idea how much it would be prudent to divulge and wanted to keep her options open. "We'd planned on having some sort of press conference in a week, once I've gathered my bearings. You could show up then to have all the information you might need."  
  
A polite 'fuck off'.  
  
The journalist was not impressed in the least. "I won't be waiting a week to write about you being there. Someone might beat me to it. I want an exclusive, and you can bet I'll be writing about you as soon as I get home. You're the one who decides if you'll be giving me some information for my article now, or if I'll have to get _creative_ in ways you might not like." He grinned. It would have been charming in any other situation. "And I can tell you now, I get paid mainly for my creativity."  
  
In other words, a tabloid journalist.  
  
Tenzin was looking more and more like a liability, as he was becoming red and seemed about to explode in anger. So Diana decided to take matter into her own hands and hope she wasn't doing anything she shouldn't. Promising a press conference had been a bad idea, but the stress was making it hard to think.  
  
"Well how about this," said Diana, looking as unruffled as she could. "You write something vague about me today without resorting to your... 'creativity' too much, and then show up for the press conference. In exchange for being respectful in your article, I could allow you an exclusive interview afterwards. Of course, that exclusive interview would depend on what you've written about me beforehand. If I feel you took advantage, you won't receive that exclusive."  
  
The man's gaze was calculating. "A little kindness in exchange for an interview?" He tilted his head to the side. "Why, you've got yourself a deal, young woman."  
  
He retrieved something from his breast pocket and handed it over.  
  
"Here," he said. "My card." This time his smile was much more genuine. "Keep in touch."

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Tenzin seemed torn between being furious or proud. Finally, after seeing off the journalist, he turned to Diana with a glint of anger in his eyes.  
  
"What were you thinking?!"  
  
Diana took a step back, surprised.  
  
"I was thinking I've solved the problem and gave him a reason not to write a hit piece about me." She said it all calmly, arms crossed and looking relatively bored. She knew she was in the right and didn't particularly care for Tenzin's infantilizing remarks. "Is there a problem with that?"  
  
"A problem?" Tenzin repeated. "In case you've forgotten, your presence is meant to be a secret. Wherever the Avatar goes, trouble always seems to follow. By tomorrow, the entire city will know you're there, and god knows what the criminals will do. They'll think you came to Republic City to clean up the streets, and they might decide a preemptive strike is the best way to deal with you."  
  
Strangely enough, Diana wasn't scared. She'd spent over a week in this world, and every day she'd been nervous, thinking _'Is this the day the antagonist shows up?'_ and looking over her shoulder all the time. Diana wasn't stupid. She knew that Legend of Korra was a show that featured a lot of martial arts, and that meant she would have to fight at some point, whether she wanted to or not. And right now, she just felt exhausted as the adrenalin from her talk with the journalist faded. Sure, things would be more dangerous for her, but that meant that her paranoia was justified. she no longer had to feel silly every time she acted in an overly cautious way, because from now on she knew her actions were warranted.  
  
"He already knew I was here," she told Tenzin. "I had no choice. Either I let you yell at him and he gets angry enough to write lies about me, or I give him what he wants and I get a little bit of time to plan before press conference. I know this isn't what you wanted, but I needed to make a choice. There was no way I could've kept my presence a secret." She took a deep breath. "If I let him get away without saying anything, it would look bad. Hiding my presence in the city gives the impression there's something wrong, that I have something I don't want the people to know. So I thought... transparency would be the best policy."  
  
Tenzin's face stayed angry for a few moments more, before he relaxed with a defeated sigh. "I understand, but..." and then his face twisted into a familiar blend of confusion and suspicion. "That way you talked, just handled that reporter... Korra, I don't... I don't recognize you. What...?" He clearly couldn't find the words to express himself anymore.  
  
Diana's face went white. And Tenzin noticed, because the suspicious look deepened.  
  
Fuck, should Diana tell the truth? No, of course not! He'd think she was insane! The amnesia excuse, then?  
  
At the last minute, Diana's innate paranoia reared its head, and the excuse was tossed to the side. No, not the amnesia excuse. She hadn't suffered from any hits to the head that would explain this.  
  
Time to do what she did best: Lie.  
  
_What would Korra have done? Think! THINK! Loud, with a hint of shounen protagonist. Agressive, brash..._  
  
Before Tenzin could continue with the accusations, Diana responded:  
  
"Are you calling me dumb?!" she shouted, trying to look as offended as possible. "I can be serious when I want to! I'm allowed to have hidden depths! Stop acting like I'm supposed to be as mature as a five-year-old!"  
  
Tenzin blinked, disoriented. "Well, I... Uh..."  
  
"The situation was simple!" Diana continued, doing her best Korra impression. "The journalist knew I was the Avatar and that I was in the city! He was gonna write something no matter what, so I promised him something he wants in exchange for a positive article about me in the newspaper! Stop acting so surprised, like I can't use common sense!"  
  
Tenzin's mouth was half-open in surprise.  
  
"I never doubted your common sense," the man said in a placating tone. Diana's tirade had worked, because now he was more focused on soothing a teenage girl's ego than suspecting anything was amiss. "I was just a little surprised by how well you handled this."  
  
Diana scoffed at his words, keeping up the act, while inwardly feeling extremely relieved.

Having successfully distracted Tenzin, Diana returned to the more important subject:  
  
“I told that guy there would be a press conference,” she told Tenzin, “because I didn’t want to make it look like I’m hiding anything, and because I knew everyone would find out about me anyway.”  
  
Tenzin understands immediately. “And we need to organize that press conference so you don’t look like a liar.”  
  
Diana nodded. “Yes. Do you have any idea how to do something like this? I wouldn’t know the first things about how to organize a press conference.”  
  
Well, she knew how to do it back home, in her own world, but she had no idea how it would be done in this world.  
  
“I’ll take care of it,” said Tenzin. “I’ll inform the council of your presence and ask to announce an upcoming press conference. If I mention your title during the announcement, we can be sure every single reporter in the city will show up to hear you talk.”  
  
_The council?_ Diana wondered. She didn’t ask, preferring to keep her ignorance a secret.  
  
“Thank you,” she said instead. She was rather impressed with Tenzin. After his poor showing in front of the journalist and the way he’d scolded her afterwards, she’d lost a bit of respect for him. But now he was much calmer and handling things well.  
  
_He’s not too incompetent,_ she thought grudgingly.  
  
“If you could arrange the press conference to be on a Saturday or Sunday, that would be best,” Diana told Tenzin. “I’ll be too busy with community service during the week.”  
  
Tenzin nodded, rubbing his chin. “I’ll make the announcement next Saturday, and the conference will the on the day after. That way, daily and weekly newspapers will publish an article about the conference on the same day.”  
  
“Right.” That would leave her one week to prepare. She’d also need to read the article about her that today’s journalist would write, just to get a general feel when it came to how to public saw ‘Korra’. And as for the press conference… “Who’ll be writing my speech?”  
  
She’d needed to organize a few press conferences in her home world, and had known a useful man who wrote the speech of whoever would be talking at the press conference. He’d done law studies and had worked in Marketing for a while, and he was a genius when it came to talking to the press. This time she would be the one talking to journalists, which was a first, and she hoped that whoever would write her speech was talented.  
  
Tenzin blinked. “What speech?”  
  
Ugh. His incompetence was showing again.  
  
She smiled and tried to remain patient. “For the press conference. Who will be writing my speech?”  
  
Tenzin chuckled. “Ah, I see. You don’t have to worry, Korra. You’ll just be answering a few questions. You don’t need to have someone write a speech for you. Only monarchs do that sort of thing.”  
  
Diana bit the inside of her cheek, reminding herself that screaming would achieve nothing. She’d dealt with enough journalists to know that you couldn’t speak with them unprepared, and if Tenzin wasn’t willing to help, then she’d deal with the situation on her own.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

On Tuesday evening, a few days before her press conference, Diana sat on the floor in her bedroom with a lone cup of water set in front of her.

She'd spent an entire day working hard at the police station, no matter how meaningless the tasks she'd been given were, and she wanted nothing more than to rest. But she knew that she'd be facing enemies at some point and couldn't rely of pretty lies to save her.

So that was why today, she was working on water-bending. During the past week and a half that she'd been in this world, she'd been trying to learn bending in order to protect herself and catch up on the knowledge Korra is meant to have.

Diana had been focusing most on air-bending because that was something she could work on in public without anyone asking any questions. However, in private she was working on water-bending.

Why water-bending, and not fire-bending or earth-bending? The reason was mostly practicality. The only place where Diana could work was in her bedroom, because she was watched by guards everywhere else. So practicing things she was supposed to know already had to be done in her room, and after nearly burning herself a few days ago, she’d stopped fire-bending.

As for earth-bending, she’d decided to wait until she had an other place to train. She’d needed to move around her furniture to hide the strange way the floor looked in some places, with bumps and ridges, due to her lack of talent at bending earth well.

So water-bending it was.

She looked at the cup of water and thought of water, of H2O, of the way the molecules moved. She knew from Tenzin’s lessons that you needed a certain state of mind to control an element. Air was freedom, but what was water? Diana wasn’t quite sure. It might be flexibility, the way water moves around an obstacle and is very difficult to stop, or it might be power. Diana thought about the places she’d visited in her home world, where water had been hitting cliff-faces for centuries until the rock gave in. Given enough time, water could carve pieces out of any obstacle. And yet, it could also be life. Water was essential for life, so it might not represent flexibility or power, but instead life.

Diana couldn’t ask for help without weakening her façade and her numerous lies, so she resorted to playing the scientist and testing every hypothesis.

All her ideas of flexibility, power and life managed to work to some extent, though flexibility seemed to work best. Diana tested her powers by moving her arms and hands in various ways, trying to learn water-bending katas by testing everything until she stumbled onto something worthwhile.

After a few hours of work, Diana had improved enough to feel comfortable about stopping. Yesterday she’d managed to levitate a globe of water by a few centimetres, and this evening, after a few hours of work, she could now move the water around a bit before losing control.

Her abilities probably looked pitiful compared to Korra’s, but Diana was well on her way to regaining some measure of Korra’s power.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Officer Tano was useless. Saikhan might know something or have some contacts, but he just grunted at Diana and told her to get back to her community service whenever she tried to speak to him.

So when her next break came, Diana went to Chief Lin Beifong.

The woman was in her office, sitting at her desk with several piles of papers all around her, each about as thick as the length of a finger. There were some hints of stress about her, but she was very calm.

Diana knew little of the chief. They’d talked in the interrogation room when Diana had appeared in Korra’s body, but during her week and a half of community service, they hadn’t really talked.

Lin Beifong was an important woman, constantly busy with reports, fieldwork and directing her officers. Diana wasn’t a Psychology expert by any means, but she’d seen enough to have an idea of what kind of woman Lin Beifong was.

The chief was always working hard, and had a very tough, gruff exterior. She was constantly busy and while she was a very good leader, she was extremely bad at delegating, doing most of the work herself and giving the easiest tasks to her officers. She often double-checked the work that other people had done, and sometimes even assigned one officer to verify that the work of others was of the right quality.

As someone who’d been working in the Audit department of a relatively well-known company back in her world, Diana approved of the idea of having someone’s work verified by others. After all, she’d often had to assess the finances of other companies to give a stamp of approval and prove that no one had been stealing any money.

However, the way Lin Beifong handled her department seemed a little inefficient to Diana. The chief didn’t delegate enough and didn’t trust enough. While any corrupt officers were discovered swiftly thanks to Lin Beifong’s methods, the woman wasted a lot of time and manpower to… ‘spy’ on her colleagues. It wasn’t illegal to assign one officer to check that other officers had written their reports right, obeyed orders right, and so on, but it weakened the trust her ‘inferiors’ had in her as a ‘superior’.

Lin Beifong has been burned before, Diana concluded, and by someone the woman trusted.

Of course, Diana would never be impolite enough to point out the failings she perceived in Lin Beifong. While Diana sometimes gave unsolicited advice too bluntly and had to express her regret afterwards when offense was taken, she knew better than to say anything to Lin Beifong. The woman was an adult, and older than Diana had been in her true body. So while Diana burned with the desire to nit-pick Lin Beifong’s leadership skills and quote by heart one of the numerous seminars Diana had given on the subject in the past, she kept silent and did not say anything rude.

“Hello!” said Diana enthusiastically when entering Lin Beifong’s office.

The chief didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “What do you want?”

A little more aggressive than Diana expected, but she was nothing if not adaptable.

“I came to ask for some advice, actually.”

Beifong snorted. “On how to avoid causing property damage?”

Since Diana was not a teenager, the insult went in one ear and went out the other. She’d heard worse.

“I brought you tea, if it helps,” she said, showing off the platter with two cups and a steaming tea pot.

That was enough incentive for Beifong to look up. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the platter. “No milk or sugar?”

A self-deprecating smile and a shrug. “Officer Hanako’s been taking them all from the staff room again.”

Beifong sighed, leaning back in her chair. “One of these days, I’m going to get that thief fired.”

The tension in the room was gone, so Diana found the courage to come forth and set the platter on Beifong’s desk, pushing a few files to the side as she did so. She sat down face to Beifong and started pouring the tea.

Beifong didn’t say anything, simply observing in silence.

Diana set down the pot. “There’ll be a press conference on Sunday,” was all she said.

A nod. “Tenzin told me. I’ve agreed to send some of my men there for crowd control.”

There was a moment of silence. Five seconds of _awkward_ silence.

Diana was unwilling to ask directly, trying to find ways to be subtler, and Beifong was clearly aware Diana wanted something and was taking delight in forcing Diana to ask for it outright.

“I’d like some help preparing for the conference,” Diana explained. “I asked Tenzin to find someone to write me a good speech, but he told me it was… a useless action. I don’t want to look like an idiot on Sunday, so I was wondering if you might have any tips for me.”

Beifong was not the kind of person who had a lot of free time, which was why Diana didn’t ask for advice or ‘lessons in talking to the press’, because those words implied needing a lot of Beifong’s time. The word ‘tips’ implied something small that might take a minute or two, and Beifong would be more willing to help if it wouldn’t take long.

A subtle manipulation. Nevertheless, it worked.

“I can’t hire anyone to write a speech for you or write one myself. I don’t have the time or inclination,” she explained calmly. “I’m not a talker, I’m a doer. I can’t help you decide what to say, but I can tell you which reporters to avoid, which ones are more honest, which ones will ask shallow, easy questions and which ones will give you hard questions.” Beifong took a sip of tea, eyes set on Diana.

Diana smiled. “That’s exactly what I need.”

After all, Diana was already quite good with words and knew how to spin good tales. But knowing who to speak to, and who to avoid? Such information was priceless.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Sunday was sunny and bright, with only a few thin clouds dotting the sky. The City Hall was a beautiful building, with impressive stone steps leading up to its entrance. Diana was standing at a podium right in front of the building, between two enormous stone columns, while countless journalists were waiting at the foot of the steps. The reporters were close to blinding Diana with the amount of pictures they were taking.

Further away were the civilians, held back by barriers. Only journalists had the privilege of being so close to the Avatar, it seemed. Diana hadn’t said anything about it, knowing that it was more important that she made a good impression.

Ignoring the loud sounds of photographs being taken, Diana gave a wide smile.

“Greetings,” she said into the numerous microphones arranged in front of her. “My name is Korra, and I am the Avatar. I—”

She was immediately interrupted by the journalists, who took the opportunity to pepper her with questions:

“Are you here to fight the Triads?”

“Will you remain in Republic City?”

“Is it true that you are here to receive special training by Chief Beifong?”

“Will you focus on the anti-bending movement?”

“Do you have anything to say about the rumours of you being a criminal and destroying an entire street?”

There were so many questions that they all seemed to blend together, and Diana couldn’t tell what was being said. Nevertheless, she didn’t get anxious in the least, as she was used to dealing with this behaviour in her last world. She waited in silence as they pelted her with even more questions, until her lack of answers became awkward enough that the questions petered off.

Once the silence was restored, she continued:

“Thank you. As I was saying, I will be staying in Republic City for the foreseeable future. I have come here to continue my training” — She did not mention what kind of training. If she said outright that she knew three elements and was being trained in the third, then there would be no way for her to discreetly find a bending tutor that would help her learn what Korra was supposed to know. — “and to gather more maturity. I am still young and lack experience, and it is my hope that Republic City can help me with that.”

It was worded a little awkwardly, but she was hinting at the fact that Republic City would help _the_ Avatar. It was a subtle compliment to the city, meant to bolster the egos of the citizens and those in charge. After all, the Avatar was meant to be very powerful, so going to Republic City to improve was high praise to the city and those in it.

She tilted her head to the side, smile widening. At the last minute, she remembered to make wrinkles appear around her eyes, so her expression looked more genuine. She was no politician, but she was doing her best. “You are welcome to ask your questions now.”

Unfortunately, the journalists took this to mean that they should all yell their questions at the same time. Once again, Diana patiently waited for them all to quiet down, not in the least bothered by the peer pressure. She'd dealt with worse, and honestly? The yelling made them seem childish enough that any anxiety Diana might have felt disappeared immediately.

She looked at the group of reporters and pointed — seemingly randomly — at a man in the middle. (In fact, she'd been gazing at the group for a while, searching for this specific man.)

_“—also likes to dress in red, and wears glasses. He asks serious questions that would be considered ‘hard ones’, but tend to be rather easy to answer. It’s important that you pick him because he has a big ego and comes from an important news outlet — Daily Republic News. If he doesn’t get to ask a question during a press conference, he will be insulted and write something negative about you, even if every other newspaper likes you. It’s petty, but he’s too famous to be fired for it. Since you’re young, even if you can’t answer his questions he’ll respect the fact that you tried. Start with him at the conference — he’s your best bet.”_

Thrilled to have been chosen, the man pushed his way to the front of the crowd and said his piece:

“I am Fen Lang, from the DRN. Why have you come to Republic City, and how long are you planning on staying?”

Easy question.

Diana relaxed. “I needed more specialized teachers for my training, so I thought it best to come here, as this city boasts many skilled people. As for how long I’ll be staying, I admit I don’t really know. It will depend on circumstances.”

Vague, while praising the city and by extension, its citizens. It was sure to leave a positive impression.

Next.

_“—will only ever tell the truth, and won’t lie to attract more readers. It’s up to luck whether he’ll ask an easy question or a hard one, but whatever you get, at least you know he’ll be fair when writing an article about you. He’ll be a bit harder to recognize—”_

“My name’s Xinyi Quan, from The Citizen. Is it true that on your first day in the city, you destroyed an entire street?”

That… was not an easy question.

“On the day I arrived here,” said Diana calmly, thinking furiously, “I stopped at a shop just as a group of criminals arrived to extort money from the shop owner. As the Avatar, I couldn’t afford to simply stand there and decided to act. Unfortunately, as I’d never been to a city before, I wasn’t used to fighting in a way to minimize collateral damage and part of the street was in a pretty bad state b the time I’d stopped the criminals. I was arrested along with them, and now I am doing community service to make up for my mistake. I deeply regret what I did, and I hope you can recognize it as the foolishness of an over-confident teenager. I realize now it is not a good idea to think of violence as the first solution to a problem, and that diplomacy should always be tried first.”

In that answer was a hint — ‘Korra’ would be using bending less because she felt ever so sorry for her crime, and thus from now on would favour talking over bending. That would give Diana an excuse if she ever had to fight and didn’t have the means to defend herself.

Next.

_“—asks difficult questions, but won’t call you out on it if you evade his question or give a non-answer. You need to have answered a few hard questions or your press conference won’t give the right impression, so have him ask you a question.”_

“I am Yu Shi,” said the familiar face that had come to Tenzin’s island to see the Avatar. “I’m with the Daily Herald. Can you tell us if you will be taking action against the Triads?”

Diana had to be particularly careful here. She knew she’d be talking to Yu Shi again because she’d promised to give him an interview. He’d written a nice article about her a week ago, holding his end of the bargain, and soon she’d have to speak with him. She couldn’t afford to have him as an enemy, and had to be kinder to him than to the others.

“Good question, Mister Shi,” she said. He didn’t react to the compliment, but some of the other journalists were looking a bit jealous that ‘the great Avatar’ had singled him out. “Honestly, fighting crime seems like a good action to me, something I’d support. However, I know little of the situation in the city, and I’d like to be a bit more familiar with things before taking any sort of action. I don’t even know if there are any laws against vigilantism.” A small laugh. “For now, I will be focusing on my training and learning about the situation of the city and the world. I don’t want to act first, think second. That might lead me to making a mistake, like when I caused property damage while chasing that group of criminals two weeks ago.”

And the best thing about her answer? _It gave her an excuse not to fight._

Next.

“ _—always asks easy questions. He’s not the kind to challenge whoever he interviews. He always writes fluff pieces.”_

“Kane Koki, of Social Commentary. Will you be following in Avatar Aang’s footsteps?”

Avatar Aang? Wasn’t that the little bald boy with the tattoo on his head?

Diana hid a wince. She couldn’t believe she was so ignorant of the Avatar universe. It was becoming quite a hindrance.

“I believe in creating my own path,” she answered vaguely. “I prefer not to compare myself to others. Instead, I focus on doing my best and constantly improving.”

Next.

_“—and you’ll notice her easily because she’s one of the few women. She writes very emotional articles and likes to rile people up. Anger is a great way to sell papers, after all. The best way to deal with her is to stay calm and polite. She will try to give backhanded insults, but I’ve heard she has a soft spot for children. She might be kinder to you than she usually is.”_

“I’m Lian Zheng, from The Reporter. My question is: Non-benders form a majority of the population, but benders hold most government positions. Do you have an opinion about this?”

That question was a poorly hidden bear-trap, ready to make a lot of damage. Worse, Diana didn’t know enough to give a good answer.

“I haven’t been in Republic City long enough to be familiar with people who are working for the government or have been in the past, so any answer I might give will come from a position of ignorance,” said Diana. “I _do_ know, however, that working for the government requires paperwork, connections and hard work. I don’t believe bending is that important for such a job, unless you belong to a military dictatorship where you need power to rule. Keep in mind that I am not an expert in the subject, and I know very little about this city’s situation.”

There was a lot of murmuring as a result of that answer.

There were a few more questions after that, but none were very difficult to answer, as Diana focused only on journalists Beifong had promised would ask easy question.

Diana had done her best, and things looked good. Not perfect, but good. The articles should be mostly positive, with few bad ones. The only thing that worried Diana was wondering how the real Korra would have handled the press conference.

Korra, from what Diana had seen, would have handled it horribly. Except there was a reason Diana compared Korra to Naruto Uzumaki — they both shared many traits found in typical shounen manga protagonists. And one of the traits such a protagonist had was the ability to make speeches that would convert a bad guy to the good side. Naruto had done that several times, but Diana hadn’t watched enough of Legend of Korra to know if Korra had that ability.

What if Korra’s press conference would have gone so much better with the real Korra at the helm?

Inwardly, Diana winced at the thought.

She really hoped she wasn’t ruining canon.

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

_“I_ do _know, however, that working for the government requires paperwork, connections and hard work. I don’t believe bending is that important for such a job, unless you belong to a military dictatorship where you need power to rule. Keep in mind that I am not an expert in the subject, and I know very little—”_

The radio was turned off, and the man looked at his leader.

“Amon, what should we do?” he asked.

The second figure turned around. A man, clad in black with a hood covering the back of his head, and wearing a white mask with a large red circle painted on the forehead. It was Amon, leader of the Equalists.

“She’s here earlier than planned,” he said, voice low. It was difficult to find any emotion in his tone. “We can’t afford to move slowly anymore.”

“But…” his lieutenant said, “she seems reasonable. We could talk to her, convince her to join us. You were chosen by the spirits, so surely the Avatar will be on our side?”

A moment of silence.

“She might agree with our philosophy if we explained it, but as the Avatar she can’t endorse our actions,” said Amon slowly. “She would forbid me from using the abilities the spirits gave me, and would insist on diplomacy. The Avatar cannot be seen only caring for the non-benders, and she would disapprove of some of the actions required for our plans.”

“But it’s necessary!” insisted the lieutenant, blue eyes wide and earnest beneath his goggles. “Avatar Aang himself had to resort to violence to bring about change!”

_But my true goals will never be approved by the Avatar,_ thought Amon, _and I refuse to work with Avatar Aang’s successor._

“Right now, we are a movement asking for equality and accountability,” Amon explained, “and the Avatar would most likely agree with our goals. But the moment we set our plans into motion, she’ll either stay neutral or set herself against us, simply because of the gift the spirits gave me, and what it entails.”

The lieutenant nodded. “What are our orders?”

Amon looked at the radio thoughtfully, before his gaze returned to his subordinate. “Our intelligence on the Avatar is wrong. Her crimes, behaviour and title as the Avatar would’ve made her the perfect choice to spread our message, but it seems that we have underestimated her.” He paused. “Tell our men to change the message being preached on the streets. Narrow it down to the elite, mention that the rare non-benders who made it on the council or achieved any other position of significance didn’t do it on their own merit, but because they were close to benders with power. Talk of the corruption, of the way the rulers care less for neighbourhoods catering to non-benders. We cannot afford to have the Avatar be the example proving us wrong, so we must narrow down the subject of our message.”

“… And the Avatar?”

“We have contacts in the news, don’t we? Tell them to emphasize the Avatar’s young age in their articles, and to twist her words so that if she ever tries to move against us, people will doubt her. Focus on the mistakes she made when answering questions, and weaken the trust people have in the precious Avatar. She has herself proven smarter than expected, so this time...

He clenched his hand.

"... We will **not** underestimate her.”

 

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	3. Chapter 3

 

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 **Social** **Commentary  
  
** Issue 106  
  
_DOES AVATAR KORRA OBJECT TO AVATAR AANG’S ACTIONS?_  
  
By Kane Koki  
  
Yesterday morning, young Avatar Korra offered her first public press conference, revealing her presence in Republic City and, for the first time, speaking to the world at large. Korra of the Southern Water Tribe is the latest Avatar whose predecessor, Avatar Aang, is best known for his role in ending the Hundred Year War and his various philanthropic endeavors.  
  
Upon being asked about whether she would follow Avatar Aang's footsteps, the young Avatar flinched away from the idea. Certainly, Avatar Aang's later life was far from glamorous, yet is it worthy of open shock or fear? More likely, in spite of Korra's status, she is _still_ a young girl unused to the notions and ideas that follow her title.  
  
It is not at all outrageous to fear one's own legacy _—_ we can't _all_ be the peacekeepers of the century. Yet even so, she seems shaken at the idea of being compared to Avatar Aang. Perhaps, dear reader, this is less a mark of immaturity and more a mark of envy.  
  
While Avatar Korra claims to have come to Republic City for scholarly purposes, hoping to improve her skills, she casually announced that she had attempted to prevent criminal activity. She remained vague about any possible action being taken against the Triads in order to pursue her role as a peace-keeper and protector of humanity, but she is actively performing community service under Chief Beifong's surveillance.  
  
Avatar Aang was largely acknowledged as the man who ended an unending conflict. It would seem that Korra came to Republic City with every intent to follow his footsteps, seeking to clean up our streets and save our people from its criminal underground. But upon being reprimanded, she was willing to capitulate. Are these the actions of someone who wishes to be a hero like the one who came before her, or are these the actions of a chastised child?  
  
This reporter leans on the latter possibility.  
  
Earlier accounts of her presence in Republic City show a rambunctious child. Mere minutes after arriving, Avatar Korra attempted to break up a public Equalist demonstration.  
  
""What are you talking about?" she said to me. "Bending is the coolest thing in the world!"" claims a protester. "She came out of nowhere! We were running a peaceful demonstration, and she just showed up and threatened to knock me off my platform with waterbending!" Although the protester in question asked to remain anonymous, no less than six of the twelve witnesses have requested to have their names attached to this article.  
  
It would seem that Avatar Korra claims to embody peace only after she has suffered the consequences of interrupting a peaceful protest, and only after she has suffered the consequences of active vigilantism. This is less an indication of active malice and more an indication of casual ignorance.  
  
How can we, fellow readers, condemn a princess from a kingdom far away? Avatar Korra, the daughter of Tonraq _—_ Chief of the Southern Water Bending Tribe. Is it not unreasonable to assume that, in her bid to do as Avatar Aang once did, she _did_ in fact follow in his footsteps? Is it not outrageous to assume that Avatar Korra came to Republic City to be the peacekeeper she never had a chance to be in her home?  
  
Though she is the Avatar, she is still a young girl with fantasies she wishes to entertain. Unlike most children, she has learned from her mistakes and is willing to do as she is told with sufficient chastisement -- but oh, how it must grate upon her. With a single flinch, Avatar Korra tells us everything. She wishes she could be like Avatar Aang, but shackled as she is, the most she can do is try to be her own person. We all have dreamed of being in her position, yet the reality seems less glamorous.  
  
When asked if she would follow in Avatar Aang's footsteps, she only had this to say: "I believe in creating my own path; I prefer not to compare myself to others. Instead, I focus on doing my best and constantly improving.”  
  
But how can she improve as she is punished for trying to help those around her? How can she improve if she is _not_ punished for infringing on the rights of our citizens? It would seem that our government, the government of the city founded through the efforts of Avatar Aang, has its own definition of "improvement". How fascinating it would be, to listen in on Republic City's establishment.

 

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 **Daily Herald  
  
** Issue 372  
  
_GOOD TIDINGS FOR REPUBLIC CITY – AVATAR KORRA DISCLOSES ALL!_  
  
By Yu Shi  
  
As we all know, Avatar Korra has been present in our marvellous city for nearly a month now and has kept here presence discreet until yesterday, when she finally gave a press conference to reveal her intentions when coming to Republic City. It had been a long time coming, and everyone was very excited to attend.  
  
We already know all about her arrival and how she foiled a group of thugs harassing a poor shopkeeper! Of the way she selflessly took all the blame and has been doing community service to make up for any discomfort that citizens might have felt during her fight with these criminals! All of this has been talked about in our last article on her.  
  
But what are her plans now?  
  
Knowing how eager our dear readers are for more information about the Avatar, we immediately went on to investigate!  
  
“I’m mostly focusing on my studies for now,” the Avatar explained during the conference, hinting at her training under Chief Beifong’s tutelage.  
  
She told us that she was so new to the city that she didn’t know enough about local laws and crime.  
  
Indeed, Republic City has laws against vigilantism that would make any kind of crime-fighting difficult. The Avatar might be the exception of the rule, but she didn’t seem willing to test it. Instead, she has been working for the police force, possibly being prepared for a career as an officer of the law.  
  
Despite not being done with her training, Avatar Korra is eager to help the city. She might not be able to fight crime, but she has been working tirelessly to help officers do their work.  
  
Unfortunately, Avatar Korra’s press conference was short and left many unanswered questions. People have been speculating heavily, wondering why she couldn’t be taught back in the South Pole and what specifically brought her to Republic City instead of any other place. While we do have crime, the rate of violent crimes in this city are much lower than in places such as Ba Sing Se or Omashu. What particular threat is present here that would attract the Avatar? Some believe she might be starting off with an ‘easy’ city, and will be heading to places with more crime once she has taken care of threats in Republic City. The Daily Herald is of the opinion that she came here for wisdom from Councilman Tenzin, the son of the preceding Avatar, the air-bender Aang.  
  
Avatar Korra has not mentioned any future press conferences, but the Daily Herald is proud to announce that she has promised us an exclusive interview. The date has yet to be set, but we will be able to ask all the countless questions everyone has been thinking about! So feel free to send us letters with all of your questions to our offices at number 4 Ming Street. The best questions will be asked to Avatar Korra herself.  
  
We’ll be eagerly waiting for your questions, and this week we’ll be posting articles with detailed information about Avatar Korra’s life so far and interviews with the officers she works for!

 

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 **The Citizen**  
  
Issue 581  
  
_AVATAR KORRA, THE SUCCESSOR OF AANG?_  
  
By Xinyi Quan  
  
Yesterday, the successor of one of the most important men of the century gave her first public speech.  
  
Avatar Korra, the latest incarnation whose predecessor Aang is known by all as the one who ended the Hundred Year War, has been in our city for over two weeks now, and finally explained why she has graced Republic City.  
  
Many expected the reason behind her arrival to be crime fighting. Aang gained fame by toppling a tyrant and ending a war, and while there is no war for Korra to fight, organized crime has plenty of tyrants for her to fight. Unfortunately, it seems the public overestimated Korra. She hasn’t come to help the city or reduce crime. Instead, she came for training, without a thought towards the people she is meant to protect.  
  
She arrived in Republic City as a stowaway on a ship, threatened people with her bending, went fishing in the sacred river Avatar Aang created when the city was founded, and caused untold amounts of property damage while playing vigilante instead of calling the authorities when it became apparent she was outmatched.  
  
All of this happened on her first day in the city, and is proof enough of her young age. She might be the Avatar, but she does not have the maturity that Avatar Aang had at her age.  
  
She didn’t inform anyone she would be coming to our city, and it took the hard efforts of reporter Yu Shi to uncover her presence and force her to promise to make a press conference so that the good people of Republic City might finally have their questions answered.  
  
When asked about her plans for dealing with crime in Republic City or her thoughts on the biased hiring practices in high governmental positions, she was unable to answer clearly and gave vague excuses. She clearly said that she knew too little about Republic City, the place where she plans to live, where she is expected to uphold her duties as the Avatar.  
  
Such ignorance might be expected in any other child, but as the Avatar she has been taught since birth how to handle her duties, and basic knowledge of the geopolitical situation of one of the largest cities in existence would be one of the first things she should have been taught.  
  
With her many crimes on her first day in the city and her refusal to shoulder her responsibilities, many are wondering if she will ever live up to Avatar Aang. At her age, he had already done more than she will probably manage to do in a lifetime.  
  
The only thing that keeps us hoping is her willingness to admit her faults and desire to improve. She was entirely transparent about her crimes when asked and is currently undergoing community service as punishment.  
  
One can only hope this will teach her the maturity Avatar Aang was so famed for at twelve years old, when he defeated Fire Lord Ozai and ended a war.

 

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Diana stared at the various newspapers on the dining table. All of them featured headlines about her, with images of Di—Korra.  
  
"This cannot be allowed," Tenzin said with a hint of an angry growl. His eyes were intent of the article by The Citizen, the most negative one. “I’ll talk to my contacts and have them talk to the owners of these outlets. I’ll get them to make retractions and apologize for their baseless accusations—"  
  
Diana snorted. “Censorship is wrong,” she said. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. It doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not. They could be a bigot saying hateful things and it still wouldn’t be enough to justify censorship. If you start censoring opinions you dislike, then you are nothing more than a tyrant. Most revolutions start with one man having opinions that go against the norm. If those opinions are censored, then the revolution might never come, and whoever is in charge will go unchallenged.”  
  
“But what they’re saying is wrong,” Tenzin argued. “There are laws against spreading lies with malicious intent—”  
  
A deep sigh. “Tenzin, have you even looked at the negative articles? Properly, I mean. If you set aside your emotions for one second, you’ll realize that these journalists are more intelligent than you give them credit for. They never outright lied. They twisted my words and used my mistakes against me. They found out I came to the city as a stowaway and wrecked a street trying to stop a group of thugs from engaging in crime. I should have done things differently, but it’s too late now, and they used my teenage stupidity to make me look bad. This isn’t the last time this will happen. But if I react to every negative opinion by trying to shut them up, then I will look bad. I can already imagine the articles about ‘Avatar Korra threatening innocent journalists to keep them from revealing how terrible she truly is’.”  
  
He winced at those last few words, only now realizing how bad it would have looked if he’d gone through with his plan without calming down enough to think about it first.  
  
“Nonetheless, Korra, doing nothing will just make you look weak. You are the Avatar, a symbol for the people. Staying passive when such accusations are thrown at you isn’t a good idea.”  
  
“You’re completely right,” said Diana.  
  
Tenzin looked pleased, which was what Diana had been aiming for. She couldn’t afford to alienate him, so despite his rash behaviour she had to give him a compliment here and there to avoid losing his support. She needed all the help she could get, and while she would shoot down any stupid ideas, she needed to make him like her. He was a powerful bender and had connections due to his career as a politician.  
  
Keeping him as a close ally was only common sense, though she was wary of potential betrayal. Works of fiction often had someone close to the protagonist be revealed as a traitor, so despite how kind Tenzin was she was still cautious. He was a politician, after all, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to be her teacher to have some sort of power over the Avatar instead of doing it for completely altruistic purposes.  
  
“I can’t really punish them for saying what they think,” Diana continued, “and they haven’t done anything illegal. However, I can punish one specific person. A person who promised to be kind to me in exchange for a favour, but who broke his promise.”  
  
It took a second for Tenzin to realize. His eyes widened. “That reporter who came here?”  
  
Diana nodded with a small smirk. “Exactly. I think it’s time I visit Yu Shi to see how much he really wants an interview with me, and how far he’s willing to go to get it.”

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Tenzin and Diana showed up at the Daily Herald offices without warning. They hadn’t set an appointment despite Tenzin’s protests, because Diana didn’t want to give Yu Shi the opportunity to prepare himself.  
  
Oh, by now he’d undoubtedly come up with some excuse to weasel his way out of the consequences of his actions, but…  
  
Diana was still going to nail him to the floor for breaking his promise.  
  
The secretary by the entrance looked startled when she noticed Diana and Tenzin.  
  
“Ah, uhm, hello!” said the woman, fidgeting slightly. “Do you have an appointment?”  
  
Strangely, she hadn’t recognized Diana by sight. Well, _Korra_ , technically. It seemed the Avatar wasn’t as popular as Diana had thought. That was a shame, as Diana had hoped to use that reputation to make the secretary let her pass despite how immoral it felt. But now that the option clearly wasn’t available, Diana decided not to reveal who she was. She would handle things differently.  
  
Diana approached with a polite smile.  
  
“Hello, madam. I’m here to see Yu Shi about that interview he asked for.” Diana frowned, her smile dimming. “Normally he should have mentioned me. He only gave me a card to contact him with, and this address was written on it.” Her eyes widened, and there was a barely noticeable tremble to her chin. “Did I do something wrong? Please don’t tell me I came all the way here for nothing.” Her eyes were watering.  
  
The secretary reacted predictably.  
  
“Oh, nonono!” the woman assured, half-standing to put a reassuring hand on Diana’s shoulder. “It’s an easy fix, miss. Shi should be in the writing rooms right now, so it won’t be an imposition if you go talk to him. Let me show you the way.”  
  
Tenzin was a silent presence behind Diana and the secretary as they headed towards the writing room.  
  
It was a very large room with several cubicles where journalists were working hard on their next articles. Yu Shi was talking animatedly with a co-worker, but he caught sight of Diana and paled dramatically.  
  
That reaction justified Diana’s surprise visit and gave her more confidence than anything else. If he was afraid, then it meant he knew he couldn’t slither his way out of the situation.  
  
“There he is,” said the secretary, gesturing at Yu Shi. “I assume you won’t be needing an introduction…?”  
  
Diana shook her head. “I already know him. I won’t keep you from your work — you may return to your duties.”  
  
The secretary smiled and gave a shallow bow, before leaving the room.  
  
Diana turned to Tenzin, keeping an eye on Yu Shi who was frantically moving away from his co-worker and heading towards the other end of the room, towards a door.  
  
“Let me handle it,” she told Tenzin. “I’ll call you if I need help.”  
  
Tenzin frowned. “Are you sure? Korra, he isn’t trustworthy. You need someone to accompany you just in case.”  
  
Diana resisted the urge to sigh. Tenzin hadn’t wanted to help her prepare for yesterday’s press conference, so why was he suddenly so focused on helping _now?_ She didn’t even want his help anyway. He’d proved himself incompetent too many times for her. He was a good father and a good air-bender, but that was about it.  
  
With a roll of her eyes, Diana put a hand on her hip, projecting confidence. “I’m the Avatar, Tenzin, I can totally handle it.”  
  
_Heh_. Diana was awesome at pretending to be Korra.

Diana strode towards the door Yu Shi had disappeared behind, a small smirk on her face. The thought of getting revenge for what he had done to her was enough to bring a spring to her step.  
  
Lately she’d been constantly stressed, forced to pretend to be someone she was not and always on the lookout for hints and foreshadowing about the plot and about the antagonists she would inevitably face. She had been spending her free time trying to learn how to bend the elements Korra had already mastered and concluding that Korra had to be a genius to manage it. The first episode had showed Korra as a child, capable of controlling the elements relatively well, though not having complete mastery over them. Diana was nowhere near the level of Korra as small child, and that hurt her pride immensely.  
  
Diana opened the door without bothering to knock and entered the room Yu Shi was in. spending so much time as Korra had really improved her acting abilities, because she was able to effortless pretend she was allowed to be here.  
  
The room Yu Shi was in was some sort of office. Its style was just as old as the rest of the building, a mix of the 19th century styles with some Asian influences thrown in. The Korra-verse as a whole looked like it was in the middle of some sort of Victorian Era set in Asia, with hints of steampunk. Diana wasn’t against it per say, as it looked very aesthetically pleasing, but the lack of internet and other various modern conveniences had gotten annoying fast.  
  
Yu Shi was desperately trying to look busy talking to a man who could only be his superior, but the superior in question looked annoyed and seemed a second away from throwing Yu Shi out. That was, of course, until Diana had abruptly entered the office.  
  
“Who are you?” asked the superior, a frown appearing on his face as he stared at Diana. “You shouldn’t be here. Get out!”  
  
Yu Shi smirked. Evidently, he had been counting on his boss to unknowingly make things difficult for Diana, and was now certain of his victory.  
  
As for the superior… He wasn’t quite belligerent, but there was enough impatience in his tone to tell Diana that she had better make it worth his while or she’d be thrown out, unable to have her confrontation with Yu Shi.  
  
“My name is Korra, sir,” Diana answered. An analysis of his micro expressions told her that wouldn’t be enough, so she added a slight sway to her hips as she advanced. His gaze immediately went lower, and Diana hid a smirk. _Score_. “I’m the Avatar, in case you don’t know.” She wasn’t speaking anymore — she was _simpering_. Her voice had changed in pitch and she was discretely pushing her front out to draw attention to her feminine assets.  
  
She wasn’t quite sure if this man preferred them cute or sensual, so she was trying out both with her body language and voice, analysing his responses and modifying her behaviour as needed.  
  
“The Avatar?” the superior asked incredulously. He managed to tear his eyes away from her breasts long enough to look her in the eyes. He stood up and bowed at the waist. “It’s an honor to meet you, girl.”  
  
That last word was enough to make Diana glare, until she remembered that the body she was in could be seen as that of a girl, and so the words of Yu Shi’s boss weren’t necessarily as insulting as they seemed.  
  
Diana wiped the glare from her face just as the man straightened up, oblivious to the effect his words had had on the Avatar.  
  
“I’m so sorry to interrupt you,” said Diana, keeping her voice high and girly. She didn’t quite sound ditzy, but she was approaching it. “You see, I told your journalist Yu Shi that I might be interested in according him an interview as long as I could be sure he wouldn’t twist my words or try to vilify me, and he promised me he wouldn’t!” Diana tried to look as earnest as she could. “I was really happy about it and was going to set a date for that interview, but then yesterday I saw an article in The Citizen quoting Yu Shi, and in it he says some really bad things about me…” She trailed off, looking to the side while batting her eyelashes. Her eyes had managed to tear up enough to make her appear genuinely sad at Yu Shi’s betrayal.  
  
And by god, if looks could kill, the unnamed superior would have murdered Yu Shi ten times over.  
  
Victory tasted sweet.

“Yu Shi!” the supervisor exclaimed. “Explain yourself!” The man quickly looked at Diana. “Avatar, I assure you, we are a respectable establishment that always keeps the promises made to distinguished characters such as yourself.” His smile even looked genuine. Diana was impressed.  
  
“Manh Hung—” Yu Shi started.  
  
“Tut tut!” The supervisor wacked Yu Shi’s arm with a file. “How dare you speak to me in such a familiar way?! It’s Mister Dao to you.”  
  
And if the supervisor wasn’t obvious already, the quick glance at Diana told her all she needed to know.  
  
_He must be close to Yu Shi. Half of his anger is probably for my sake. I wonder if he would have even scolded Yu Shi if I wasn’t present?_  
  
“Um, Mister Dao,” said Yu Shi. His eyes were flicking from his boss to Diana and back again, wide and beseeching. “I didn’t do it, I promise!”  
  
Diana raised an eyebrow. “So the article in The Citizen was lying, then?”  
  
Yu Shi couldn’t hide his wince. “Not… exactly?”  
  
It was amusing to consider that when he had the advantage, Yu Shi was charming and manipulative, but as soon as the tables were turned, he lost any ability to act convincingly and just became a nervous mess.  
  
A bit like Diana herself, come to think of it. Huh. How about that?  
  
Diana sighed. “I don’t particularly care if you broke your promise.” She’d heard too many horror stories to fully trust a journalist, especially a tabloid journalist. Nevertheless, she was disappointed that he would breaks his promise for such a stupid reason. He would have had so much more to gain if he hadn’t sold out to The Citizen, because then he would’ve been able to interview the Avatar and his audience would’ve grown a lot as a result. From what Diana had seen, the Avatar was world-famous and commanded a certain respect just by having the title.  
  
“I just wanted to know why you’d throw away our bargain and lose out on an interview with me,” Diana continued, “and I wanted Mister… Dao? Yes, I wanted Mister Dao to know how your lack of professionalism.” She shook her head, making sure to broadcast intense disappointment. “Honestly, selling out to a rival newspaper? Helping a direct competitor? That’s just asking to get fired.”  
  
Mister Dao frowned even harder. It seemed like he had been so blinded by the possibility of losing an interview with the Avatar that he hadn’t even realized his employee had technically given information over to a rival news company.  
  
“Yu Shi,” Mister Dao growled, “you’re _fired_.”  
  
Well, that was certainly done more promptly than back in Diana’s own world. Had Diana been in Yu Shi’s place, she would have headed straight to HR. Hm. Did Human Resources even _exist_ in this antiquated place?  
  
“Wait, no, you don’t understand!” Yu Shi protested frantically. His face was white, and he was nothing close to the suave man Diana had first encountered on the island where Tenzin’s home was. “I never said anything to The Citizen! They didn’t contact me, and I didn’t say anything to them!”  
  
Mister Dao didn’t seem to care, but Diana was curious.  
  
“Really?” she asked.  
  
Yu Shi nodded several times. “It’s because of the first article I wrote, that day I met you. I was the one who broke the news about you being in Republic City, and I explained that through sources in the police force I discovered paperwork about your actions when you arrived here, and then I managed to track you down to ask questions. The Citizen took my words and twisted them to make it look like you were trying to hide something and that’s why no one knew you were in the city!”  
  
Diana leaned back.  
  
That… That made some amount of sense. On the day she’d met him, she’d told him he could write his articles, and that as long as they didn’t twist her words or attempt to vilify her, she’d grant him an interview. He’d agreed, and the very next day his article had hit the streets, gushing about his discovery of the famed Avatar in Republic City, what she was like in person, and how he’d discovered her presence.  
  
“And if you’ll notice,” Yu Shi continued, glancing at her anxiously, “today’s article in The Citizen doesn’t actually quote me saying anything negative about you. They imply I told them negative things about you when all they did was selectively interpret part of my very first article about you.”  
  
It sounded good. It sounded plausible.

 

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...

 

  
But Diana didn’t believe him. He’d run from her when she’d showed up at his workplace and had only tried to explain himself when forced to, instead of doing it of his own volition. That made him look guilty.  
  
She had no proof of his guilt and his excuse essentially absolved him of any guilt, but her instinct told her he wasn't to be trusted.  
  
But could she afford to call him a liar? He’d just given a very good excuse, and Mister Dao seemed mollified by it.  
  
If she refused to believe him, she would look bad, especially since she lacked any proof of his guilt. She'd look like a petty teenager insisting on Yu Shi's guilt with no proof.  
  
Furthermore, accepting his apology might actually help her in the long term. After all, owing him an interview could be useful, because public perception was important and there might come a time when she needed to improve her image by having an article posted about her. However, she didn’t trust him, and wasn’t sure any interview with him would be of any use if he was just as likely to turn it into something that would sell more at her reputation’s expense.  
  
What should she do?  
  
She looked at Mister Dao, who was no longer angry at his subordinate, and Yu Shi, who might be lying or might not.  
  
Diana swallowed.  
  
Korra’s nails were blunt and short, nothing like Diana’s long, carefully manicured nails had been. That was the only reason why Diana’s palms _(Korra’s palms)_ weren’t bleeding with how hard she was clenching her hands into fists. If she would care to look, there would probably be little crescent-shaped marks on her palms right now.  
  
“I see. I accept… your apology. I was wrong to believe you were at fault.”  
  
_You rat,_ she thought, staring at Yu Shi, who was now in control of the conversation again, all smiles and perfect confidence regained. She had the sneaking suspicion that he’d never been nervous in the first place. _I’m not some kid for you to jerk around._  
  
**_I’ll get you for this._**

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

Diana left the building feeling angry and annoyed, with a clueless Tenzin following along.  
  
“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” said Tenzin, eyebrows furrowed. “If he’s telling the truth, he did nothing wrong, and if it’s a lie, you can just cancel that interview you promised him. You shouldn’t be this angry about something that won’t matter in the long run.”  
  
“Easy for you to say. I don’t have much respect for people who try to profit from both loyalty and betrayal.”  
  
Despite being the one leading their little duo, Diana had no idea where she was heading. She knew very little of the city’s layout, but she wasn’t nervous about getting lost. Tenzin was there if she needed directions. No, what she was doing now was walking as far away as possible from the office building of The Herald. She wanted that place _out_ of her sight.  
  
Diana sped up.  
  
Tenzin sighed, and hurried after her.  
  
“Korra, this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Learn from this experience and move on.”  
  
The worst part of the situation was that Tenzin was completely right. Diana had been so confident with the advantage of being more mature than her apparent physical age and her experience in business with the press that she’d forgotten there were people with more maturity, experience or just shrewdness in general. Diana was not even thirty years old, and yet the fact that Korra’s body was that of a teenager had people underestimating her so she could easily take advantage of the situation. Diana had grown overconfident.  
  
In any other situation, Diana would’ve blown past the issue and found another way to deal with it. It wasn’t the first problem she’d faced, and it wouldn’t be the last. But starting out so confident and with the advantage, only for the situation to be turned around like that… It made her want to punch Yu Shi in the face.  
  
He probably wouldn’t even mind. It would give him all the ammunition he needed to write a hit piece.  
  
Diana stopped, allowing Tenzin to catch up with her.  
  
“I hate this,” she admitted.  
  
Tenzin put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.  
  
“Sometimes life doesn’t go your way. You can complain about it, or you can find ways to turn the situation around.” He paused. “Korra, are you going to brood, or be proactive?”  
  
Diana shrugged his hand off. “I get it. Don’t worry.”  
  
Tenzin nodded. “Very well. How about we return home? We’ve gotten a little turned around, and we should hurry before we miss the next boa—”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
A stranger had walked up to them. It was a young man, thick boned like a rugby player, with dark hair and striking green eyes. But what drew Diana’s attention the most was the little animal perched on the guy’s shoulder. Its fur made it look like a red panda, but with the body shape of a ferret.  
  
What was the rule again, when it came to shows and movies for kids? Ah yes, the main characters will often have an animal mascot.  
  
And Diana could distinctively remember seeing a promotional poster for Legend of Korra featuring Korra, a pretty girl with yellow eyes, a generic cute boy, and a guy with green eyes and a huge smile.  
  
_This is… !_  
  
The stranger smiled politely. “I’m sorry to bother you, but have you seen this person?”  
  
He opened his wallet, and took out a black and white picture showing himself and another young man.  
  
“My brother’s missing,” he explained, “so if you have any information, I’d be grateful.”

Diana took charge immediately, all thoughts of Yu Shi forgotten. It was time to befriend someone important!  
  
“I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t seen him,” she told the young man. “Let us help you. With three people we’ll find him faster than with one.”  
  
She didn’t phrase it as a question on purpose. If she had, he might have politely turned her down. He didn’t exactly know her, and he would have probably thanked her but said he could handle it on his own. She couldn’t afford to let him go that easily, so it was best to be pushy.  
  
“Korra…” Tenzin said. He blatantly disapproved, but he didn’t rudely tell her they had to go home.  
  
She turned around. “Please, Tenzin. As the Avatar, I’m meant to help people. I’d feel terrible if I couldn’t do something as simple as help this guy find his brother. I’m not going off on my own. You’ll be there to supervise. I promise I’ll behave and I won’t end up in front of Beifong again. So, can we please help him?”  
  
“You don’t need to—” said the young man.  
  
“Your brother’s missing,” Diana snapped, annoyed. “He could have been beaten up and mugged and left unconscious in an alley somewhere. If something happened to him, then as a good citizen and fellow human being it’s only natural that I’d help.”  
  
She regretted her words immediately when she saw the guy wince at the words ‘beaten up and mugged’, but she held firm and didn’t show any hesitation. If something plot-related was happening, she needed to be there, if only to be informed and stay on top of things.  
  
“You don’t even know me, and you’re okay with helping me find Mako just like that?”  
  
_Mako,_ Diana thought, _is presumably his brother. The name does sound vaguely familiar, even though the guy in the photograph looks average with his brown hair and brown eyes._  
  
“It’s these strange things called kindness and compassion. You’ve probably never heard of them, but it’s where people decide to help someone out of the goodness of their heart.”  
  
The young man rolled his eyes. “What did you expect? People ain’t exactly lining up to help me. I was just surprised when _you_ did.”  
  
Diana held out her hand. “The name’s Korra. I’m the Avatar, and according to some, that means I’ll be lining up in front of everyone to help them out. I guess you’ll just be the first.” She pointed her thumb at Tenzin. “And this is Tenzin, my mentor. He’s a skilled air-bender and he knows some people in the police force. Maybe we can ask the police to look for your brother…?”  
  
“I’m Bolin,” said the young man. His face was a little downcast now. “Nice to meet you. I tried going to the police when I found out he was gone, which was about half an hour after he was taken, but they didn't care. I've been searching for nearly two hours and I don't know what to do.”  
  
Tenzin raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you know he’s missing? If it’s only been two hours, he might have gone somewhere and forgotten to tell you.”  
  
Bolin shook his head slowly. “It could be possible, but I have proof he was taken against his will. The place where he was working has been trashed, and someone next door witnessed him and some other guys get stuffed into a van.”  
  
“What?” Diana’s eyes were wide. “Shouldn’t the police be taking this seriously if there’s proof of an abduction? This isn’t just a missing person’s case!”  
  
Bolin shrugged, defeated. The little creature on his shoulder nuzzled the side of his face to comfort him. “It’s like I said. People aren’t exactly lining up to help me out, police included. I’m not really important enough to deserve it, I guess.”  
  
Until then, Diana hadn’t been helping him out of any altruistic desire. She’d only wanted to get closer to a main character so she wouldn’t be blindsided by later canon events. However, this kind of negligence by the police over a kidnapping case had her blood boiling.  
  
She put a hand on Bolin’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Don’t worry, we’ll help. What can we do for you?”

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

They started by heading back to the scene of the crime. Showing a picture of Mako to random citizens and asking if they’d seen him was very unlikely to bring results, so Diana decided to see if she could find any clues at Mako’s workplace, where he was abducted.  
  
On the way, Bolin explained what Mako’s job was. When the name of the place he worked at came up, some restaurant somewhere in the city, that was when the first issues began to pop up.  
  
“You’re criminals?!” Tenzin exclaimed, stepping away from Bolin. “I’m not surprised your brother was abducted! A rival gang probably took him to send a ‘message’ to his superiors!”  
  
“You don’t get it!” Bolin protested.  
  
“Oh, I understand just fine. All criminals meet a bad end at some point, either because they get arrested or another criminal decides to do them in. This is a waste of—”  
  
“Tenzin.” Diana’s voice was soft, but it got the man to stop talking nevertheless. “Let Bolin explain. I’m sure it’s not what you think.”  
  
Diana was… _mostly_ convinced Bolin couldn’t have been working as a drug dealer or some sort of murderer. Why? Well because he was a main character in a children’s show, of course. She highly doubted he’d done anything _truly_ terrible. Maybe the cartoon had given him and his brother a criminal past to make them more interesting characters, and their whole arc was all about turning a new leaf and deciding to renounce their criminal ways with a lot of character growth and self-reflection. No matter the situation, Diana was convinced Bolin and Mako had not committed any serious crimes, if only because a cartoon aimed at children wouldn’t contain such things.  
  
Diana looked at Bolin. “Explain, please.”  
  
Bolin looked at her and Tenzin, biting the inside of his cheek. He nodded slowly. “Well, thing is, my brother and I used to have a pretty sweet gig. We were pro-benders, part of a talented team and we would’ve been heading straight to the finals if it wasn’t for…”  
  
“For…?” Diana encouraged.  
  
He shrugged. “I dunno. Our third teammate didn’t show up for a match. We never got an explanation. You can’t play if you’re missing a team member, so we were disqualified. We had to pay a lot for our equipment, so we were in debt and homeless.”  
  
“So you turned to crime.” There wasn’t any judgment in Diana’s tone. She knew she also would’ve done immoral things to keep herself off the street and well-fed.  
  
Bolin didn’t deny it. “Mako and I, we never got our bending mastery,” he admitted shamefully. “We were taught by our parents, but they died when I was six. If you’re a bender, it’s pretty easy to get industrial jobs, but we never had the bending skill and control over our elements to get paid enough to live comfortably. We're good at smaller things, but moving very large amounts of concrete and other needed skills weren't in our reach. Too heavy, too difficult. Pro-bending is easy, because you don’t need to bend anything large. Me and my brother, we’re fit and we’re good at bending quickly and aiming at moving targets, so we made enough money to live by being pro-benders. When we lost the team, my brother found us a place at the Solar restaurant—”  
  
“Who is well known for its links to the TTT and has yet to be shut down because witnesses have been scared into compliance,” growled Tenzin.  
  
“—as _waiters_ ,” Bolin continued with a glare.  
  
“Waiters?” Diana asked, surprised. “Is that all?”  
  
He’d looked so ashamed, but his criminal past consisted of being a _waiter_ for a restaurant associated with a gang? How… _boring_. Reassuring, but boring nonetheless.  
  
Bolin grimaced. “Well, our official contract says we’re waiters, but it’s pretty much expected that if anything happens we’re meant to act as guards and protect the restaurant.”  
  
Security masquerading as waiters. Hm.  
  
“So how sure are you that your brother wasn’t taken by a rival gang?” Diana asked.  
  
“Because the biggest misunderstanding the police and normal folk have is that the gangs of the city are rivals in the first place,” Bolin explained. “The three Ts have plenty of unspoken accords with the other gangs right now. They help each other out and make more money by being a united front instead of being busy fighting over the city. They make concessions and help each other out. None of them want a gang war because it’s bad for business, so they cozy up instead.”  
  
“And so if a gang was stupid enough to betray that friendship, they would probably have abducted someone more important than a waiter,” Diana concluded.  
  
Bolin nodded.  
  
Diana looked at Tenzin. “What do you think?”  
  
The man looked very thoughtful. “It’s highly likely there have been spies in the police force and in the media, spreading rumours of this gang rivalry. Now that I think of it, any fighting between gangs is rather rare, and yet it’s common knowledge that all the criminal groups despise each other and fight for territory. It’s highly likely a disinformation campaign has been going on for a while now.”  
  
_So,_ thought Diana, _whoever kidnapped Mako is unlikely to be a gang member. Who was responsible, then?  
_

 

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	4. Chapter 4

 

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.

 

.

 

The restaurant was utterly trashed. Clearly, whoever had abducted Mako didn't care about subtlety, because most of the furniture had been smashed and something large had torn a hole into one of the building's brick walls.

"And you said the authorities didn't care, despite this?" Tenzin asked incredulously.

The canon character—what was his name again? Bowl? Bowling? Oh right, Bolin!—shrugged feebly. "They didn't see this. They heard me talk about my brother being abducted and shut me down fast. Mentioning the area the Solar is in… didn't help. I wasn't dumb enough to say I worked at the Solar, because they might have arrested me just for mentioning that name, but this place is a rather bad corner of the city. The police don't patrol here. The crime's too high, and whenever they try to come here they always end up wounded or dead."

Tenzin frowned. "I've never heard of this."

"Do you really think the police would be willing to admit there are parts of the city they can't access without trouble? It isn't good for their public image, so…" Bolin waved his hands around. "Yeah. They just sweep it under the rug."

Tenzin was still having trouble believing it. "Lin is an honourable woman. She wouldn't lie about that."

Lin? Oh right. That was Beifong's first name.

"Not even if telling the truth would cause outrage? She could also be fired, and her department could lose funding."

Tenzin didn't respond. His face was pale with a realisation he didn't like.

Diana smacked her lips together and clasped her hands behind her back. "Oookay. So I'll leave you to it. Look inside this place while I check out the outside."

She hurried out before the awkward atmosphere could get worse.

The outside of the Solar really did look terrible. One side was obliterated, and there were bricks everywhere. It was also starting to be rather late, so with the low lighting and scene of destruction, Diana felt a bit like she was in the set-up for a horror movie.

Suddenly feeling a bit paranoid, standing alone with only the moon to light up the street, Diana looked around.

It seemed she'd been worrying for nothing, because there was nobody—

There!

One of the buildings a bit further away. Someone was peeking at Diana and the Solar through the blinds of their window, from the ground floor.

The moment she started walking towards the person, the blinds closed completely and the spy disappeared.

 _He knows something,_ Diana thought, accelerating until she was running.

As soon as she was in front of the building, she knocked at the door. No response.

Gritting her teeth, Diana tried to be charming:

"Excuse me? I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but the restaurant across from you was attacked today and someone was abducted. I'm trying to find clues to save the person before it's too late, and was wondering if you knew anything…?"

There was no answer, though Diana could faintly make out the sound of someone moving around inside. She bit her lip, nearly drawing blood, and clenched her fists until her knuckles were white.

"I know it can be frightening, and I can guess you're probably too afraid to help. But this person who was taken could die, his brother begged me to help, but I couldn't find any clues and I'm really desperate for any sort of information that'll allow me to save the victim."

Still nothing.

Should she pull the Avatar-card to try and convince this person to open the door? Considering this kind of neighbourhood was hostile to the police-force, they might not appreciate knowing the Avatar was present.

"Please…?"

Diana _hated_ begging, but she didn't know what else to do. Korra would probably have used her bending to break into the building so she could question the person inside, but Diana… Diana only had her words.

And finally, after five seconds of silence, she heard the lock turn, and the door was opened.

On the other side was an old man, rather short, with a bit of flab around the stomach and wearing unwashed clothing.

"Oh, thank you!" Diana said, glad this hadn't been a complete waste of time.

The man looked around suspiciously, as if expecting more people.

"What are you waiting for?" he demanded. "Don't just stand there — come in before someone sees you."

Entering the home of a fifty-something shifty man she'd caught spying on her a minute ago wasn't a good idea… but she did it anyway. He might be a potential witness, and considering how important Mako was to the canon plot, following a lead was crucial.

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

"The Equalists?" Tenzin asked, stunned. "They've caused some problems in the past, true, but abduction? That's…"

"A bit far-fetched, yes," said Diana. "But we don't have any other leads."

"Do you think… Do you think this guy is trustworthy?"

Poor Bolin looked desperate for a hint of his brother's whereabouts. Diana had the vague urge to hug him and spew empty reassurances.

"Not at all," she said. "He looked untrustworthy. But the police are useless and there's nothing helpful at the restaurant, so we don't have a choice."

And now Bolin was looking even more like a kicked puppy. There was something very genuine about him that made him appear younger than he was, and he was so transparent with his emotions that Diana felt the urge to curb her usual blunt ways to avoid hurting his feelings. Despite having a 'dark past', there was something about Bolin that screamed 'sheltered' and she was pretty sure the older brother treated Bolin like a helicopter parent, constantly hovering and protecting their child from the world.

"And all he gave you was an address," grumbled Tenzin.

Diana shrugged. "Apparently they often have rallies with someone high up in the movement giving an inspiring speech. Only those who have an 'in' get the address to the rally."

Honestly it seemed stupid to keep the address a secret. How could the Equalists convert more people to their way of thinking if a majority of the public had no idea where to find a rally? The only attempt the Equalists had made to convince people — that she had seen — was in the first half of episode one, before Diana ended up in the shitty situation, when the real Korra had come across a man handing out fliers about the movement.

"You two can't go to the rally dressed like that," said Bolin. He was looking at Diana's outfit critically. As usual, she was dressed in the orange clothes of the Air People (Air Tribes? Or was 'tribe' only used for the water-benders? Diana couldn't exactly ask without looking strange), just like Tenzin.

"Why not?" she asked.

Tenzin though, he had already understood.

"My family is the only family of air-benders left in the world. A man my age, wearing these clothes?" He shook his head. "Anyone with a hint of brains at the rally will know I'm a member of the city's council. The Equalists aren't criminals per say, but they dislike the government, and benders are mostly hated. They might not allow us in."

Diana frowned. "We don't have the time to go home and change. The rally would be over by then." Ugh, calling Tenzin's place 'home' felt… wrong. Diana had been in this world long enough to somewhat accept her situation, but there were still moments, when she looked in a mirror or had to say things she didn't agree with, when she felt a profound sense of unease. At least she was well-adjusted and had a flexible mindset. If that hadn't been the case, she would have been battling quite the case of body dysmorphia.

Tenzin crossed his arms, looking around at the rundown area they were in. "And it's late," he added under his breath, barely audible. "Shops will be closed, so we can't buy any neutral clothing."

Bolin gave a small smile. "I think I can help out. I know a place my brother goes to where we could get some clothes, even at this time."

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

If there was one thing Diana really liked about her situation despite being stuck in a different world, in a body that was alien and bizarre, forced to pretend she was something she was not because she was too much of a coward to tell the truth… Well, the one thing she really liked was the steampunk aesthetic of the setting. (And having superpowers, of course. Magic was really cool.)

The steampunk genre was cool, and thus Republic City was too as a result. The buildings were beautiful, a mix of late 19th century architecture with various Asian styles, creating a unique blend she had never seen before. But what she really liked where the clothes.

Not those ugly orange clothes she had to wear at Tenzin's place, nor the blue clothes that signified she was from the Water Tribes. Those were kind of boring and… _meh_.

The clothes Diana really liked where those worn by people in the city. There, they didn't really care about wearing only blue, orange, green or red to show what nation they came from. Instead, there was a lot more variety, and all the clothes reminded her sharply of Victorian England, with beautiful dresses that had her itching to buy.

Before ending up… well, inside Korra, as wrong as that sounded, Diana hadn't cared all that much about fashion. She'd been a workaholic desperate to prove herself, and her only vanity had been her hair, which was an obsession of hers. Clothes weren't important because Diana rarely found anything she truly loved, so she only bought clothes appropriate for work and didn't care beyond that.

But in Republic City… there was an entire culture to discover! So many different things! Some beautiful, while others were a bit too bizarre for her to contemplate.

And thus, approximately an hour later after Bolin had taken them to the flat of a friend of Mako's, where they'd gotten their hands on clothes that would work well as a disguise, well… Diana stood out a little.

Bolin and Tenzin had aimed for functional clothes in shades of black and grey respectively. But Diana… she forgot all about pretending to be Korra in favour of indulging her new-found desire to look pretty. If she had the suffer with Korra's ill-kempt hair, then at least she could use the opportunity to dress nice!

She ended up wearing a polonaise, which was a garment with an overskirt and a bodice and basically the local equivalent to a shirt. Her skirt had a tournure underneath to give it the distinctive shape of 1870s dresses that was rather popular amongst Republic City women. With her clothes, and her gloves and hat, Diana looked… upper class. The only nod she'd made to discretion was having her dress be brown, a shade common enough to make her less visible. But still, next to Tenzin and Bolin, who looked middle class, she stood out.

"Are you sure?" asked Tenzin, looking at her in aggravation.

Diana wrapped her arms around herself as if to obscure her clothes from view.

Bolin took pity. "Aw, come on." He came closer and patted her shoulder. "She likes it, doesn't she? If looking like this has people asking questions at the rally, we can always say she's a rich lady looking to invest in the cause. That'll stop people from looking suspicious and get them eager real quick."

Bolin's words were kind, but it was obvious he didn't really care about her clothes. He just wanted them to stop wasting time so they could hurry and save Bolin's brother.

Tenzin must have seen that too, because his expression softened as he looked at Bolin. As a father, Tenzin could understand Bolin's worry for his brother in a way Diana couldn't quite match.

"What was the address again?" asked Tenzin, dropping the subject of clothing.

Diana straightened. "It's in the industrial sector. Sayori Road, number four."

Sayori Road turned out to be quite the gloomy place. There were warehouses everywhere and the streets were barely lit. The rally they were headed to was held in a warehouse that looked no different than the others. What had the hairs on the back of Diana's neck standing up was the lack of people. If a rally was happening, shouldn't there be people waiting to be let in?

"I don't like this," she whispered to her companions. "There's nobody else here. Do you think the witness led us to some sort of trap?"

Bolin shook his head. "No. The rally started a few minutes ago. Everyone should already be inside, so it's fine."

And indeed, it was.

There was a man guarding the door, and he looked at them all with a raised eyebrow, eyes lingering in Diana a little.

"You're late," said the doorman.

"Very sorry," said Tenzin with an amiable smile. "Is it too late for us to enter?"

Gosh, hopefully it wasn't.

The doorman shook his head. "Never too late for other brothers." His eyes darted to Diana. "And sisters, sorry."

Tenzin's smile became real. "Perfect, so we'll just be—"

"Wait a second," said the man, eyeing Tenzin suspiciously. "Show me your invitations first."

 

 

 

_Shiiiiii—_

 

 

 

"Invitations?" Tenzin asked, smile faltering.

The situation was going down the drain, and fast. Diana put on her polite smile and took a step closer to the guard, bringing his attention to her.

"Excuse me?" she said.

The man looked a little uncomfortable. "Yes, madam?"

Well, the dress was certainly having its effect. The man wasn't attracted to her — she could tell. However, he was intimidated by the hints of her apparent status, and Diana might be able to work that to her advantage.

"We're very sorry. We were told at the last minute by a friend of ours about this rally. He's been talking to us about the cause, you see, and how important it is," she said, wide-eyed and earnest. "We were a bit sceptical about what a man like Amon could do for us, so our friend told us to come to this rally, that it would convince us that the cause is just and the Equalists are worth supporting." She then looked down, embarrassed. "He didn't tell us about any invitations, though. He just said we should come here and see it for ourselves. We… didn't know. We were only told to come here at the last minute. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, madam," said the guard gruffly. "We use invitations to prevent undesirables from coming along. But we don't turn away supporters to the cause." He opened the doors and let them in. "You'll see it for yourself, that our cause is right. The Revelation will get rid of your doubts."

 _The Revelation?_ Diana wondered.

"Thank you very much!" she told the man.

He smiled. "No problem, little lady."

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

The warehouse was full of people, all looking at a stage where Amon was standing, as well as a few people in uniforms, and…

"That's Mako!" Bolin hissed.

Mako was a young man, slightly taller than Bolin, with dark clothes and dark hair. The only noticeable thing about him was the bright red scarf around his neck. He was standing in a fighting pose in front of Amon. What surprised Diana was the lack of binding. Mako wasn't bound in any way and looked like he was about to fight Amon.

"Did we arrive at some sort of underground fighting ring?" Diana asked incredulously, barely remembering to keep her voice low.

They should have hurried to arrive on time. They'd obviously missed some sort of speech that would explain why the Equalists hadn't tied up one of their hostages.

"Why doesn't he run?" asked Tenzin just as Mako sent a gout of flame at Amon's face.

Amon moved smoothly out of the way. With his white mask, it was impossible to guess his expression, but the way he easily avoided all of Mako's following attacks made him look downright bored. He slowly approached Mako, jumping and spinning elegantly to the side every time large flames were sent towards him, turning the fight into a spectacle.

There was something almost graceful about Amon's movements. It looked like he was dancing, with the flames acting more as artful decoration than any danger to his life.

It was… rather impressive, really.

Finally, Amon arrived close enough to grab hold of Mako's limbs, turning him around and forcing him brutally to his knees, facing the crowd. The man put his hand on Mako's head, thumb placed on the middle of the forehead.

Nothing obvious happened, but suddenly Mako was gasping, face tightened in agony. A moment passed, and then Amon let go.

Too weak to stay in place, Mako fell with a loud _thud_ , his head bouncing off the ground.

Diana flinched, and Tenzin held Bolin back before he broke his cover.

"That's my brother!" Bolin hissed, straining against Tenzin's grip and looking desperately at the stage.

Some people could hear him and were turning to stare at Bolin.

"We're outnumbered. We need reinforcements or we'll all end up exactly like your brother!" Tenzin whispered, eyes darting to their surroundings.

"Look!" Diana said, pointing at the stage.

Mako hadn't been knocked unconscious despite slamming his head into the floor. He was on his knees, pushing himself up. Finally, he stood, and faced Amon.

"What did I ever do to you?!" Mako demanded, swaying unsteadily. There was a line of blood trickling down the side of his face. Without even waiting for an answer, he moved his hands to send another surge of flames at Amon, but…

Nothing happened.

Mako was left with wide eyes, his hands pointing at Amon, no fire to be seen.

"M-m-my…" Mako stuttered, looking at his hands. His stare went to Amon. "My bending! What did you _do?!"_

Bolin choked, looking at his brother with tears in his eyes.

"The spirits have deemed humans to be unworthy of bending," Amon said, walking away from Mako and closer to the crowd. He addressed the people in the warehouse: "From now on, I will humble every single bender there is! They will no longer be able to discriminate against us, to use their powers to turn non-benders into victims! Benders will learn that their powers do not make them superior. We will take their precious bending from them."

He paused, and everyone held their breath.

"We will bring equality to Republic City!"

The crowds cheered, clapping wildly at his words. Diana and Tenzin exchanged glances, lips pursed.

"And we shall start," Amon continued, turning to what could only be other benders, bound in ropes, gagged and blind-folded, "by depriving these other criminals of the abilities they use to extort money, sell drugs and kill people who would stop them."

Two Equalists grabbed hold of one of the hostages and took his bindings away. At the same time, someone else was dragging Mako off the stage.

"That other hostage is Shady Shin!" Bolin exclaimed. He turned to Diana and Tenzin. "We have to do something. We need to stop them and _save Mako!"_ His voice broke at the end, tone high and desperate.

"I… I didn't know you could take bending away…" Diana said, eyes stuck on Amon's form. "How is this possible?"

"That doesn't matter right now," said Tenzin with narrowed eyes. He looked at the stage, and then at where Mako was being dragged, somewhere backstage. "We need to act. Bolin, do you know how to fight?"

The young man nodded, trying to subtly wipe his tears. "I'm an earth-bender. I'm not good at anything flashy and I can't move huge, heavy rocks, but I'm good at anything small and fast." He was constantly turning to keep an eye on where Mako was last seen before he was pulled backstage.

"From your pro-bending career?"

"Yeah. I'm... I'm also really good at dodging."

Tenzin straightened.

"Perfect," he said, voice lowered. "I have a plan, but I'll need you two to do exactly as I say." He looked pointedly at Diana as he said it, and her brows furrowed in offense. Why was he looking at her like she was some sort of reckless idiot?

"Now," Tenzin continued, "here's what we'll be doing…"

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—_

 

 

 

Why couldn't she have said something to Tenzin? Now he was expecting her to know how to fight!

Diana tried to be as subtle as she could, but it was difficult when she had to forcefully push people to the side to arrive to the other side of the room.

"Sorry, 'scuse me." Diana went under someone's arm and past a couple holding hands. She had to push when part of the crowd refused to let her pass. "Excuse me—" A man turned around to glare at her, and she hurried away.

She was lucky no one on stage had noticed her yet, as the crowds closer to it were denser and hid her more effectively. She didn't want to know what would happen if she were caught.

Why hadn't she said something to Tenzin? It wasn't that difficult!

 

 

 

_"Oh, Tenz', I'm ever so sorry but I can't help you with that plan 'cause you're expecting me to fight. You see, I'm a body-snatcher who took over Korra's body, and in between my angsting sessions full of emo whining as well as the whole crisis about my self-identity and being in a whole new world, I haven't quite had the time to learn, in the two weeks I've been here, how to bend the elements it took Korra years to learn. Funny, eh?"_

 

 

 

Diana was so fucked.

Finally, she arrived in front of the door leading backstage. It was… Well, the door wasn't in full view, at least, but it wasn't hidden. There was no way for her to use it without being seen.

She steeled herself. It wasn't like she had a choice.

Truthfully, she wanted to leave this place and just… run like a coward. But she had no money or shelter, and she'd inevitably have to return to Tenzin's place, where there would be questions. If Tenzin wasn't killed in the warehouse first, that was.

The plan itself was rather simple. Tenzin was to launch a distraction from the crowd in about five minutes. Diana needed to be backstage, because as the strongest fighter, she'd be able to beat anyone that might be guarding Mako. When Tenzin launched his distraction, Diana would use the opportunity to escape with Mako, fighting anyone that would bar their path.

As for Bolin, considering Tenzin knew little about the young man's abilities, it was decided he'd stay in the crowd while Tenzin would launch the distraction. Bolin would have to remain hidden in the panicking crowds and launch sneak attacks at the Equalists, flinging small rocks at them with enough discretion to make it difficult for anyone to know who among the crowd was the earth-bender.

A good enough plan…

 

 

…

 

 

…

 

 

…

 

 

… if Diana was anywhere near as talented a fighter as Korra.

Pretending she had every right to be there, Diana went through the door. With her confident attitude, hopefully any watchers would think she was allowed to be there.

The room she ended up in was full of pipes everywhere, with puffs of steam escaping some of the older, rusted ones.

Oh, and her first opponent was there, too.

It was the doorman who'd let her in the rally without a ticket, earlier. He was in the middle of a smoke-break.

And of course, with her fantastic luck he'd seen her too, and was frowning at her.

"Whaddaya doing here?" he demanded. "This place is off-limits."

 _Hahaha, it's a funny story, you see,_ she thought. _I'm supposed to help Mako escape and fight any enemies on my path._

She eyed his muscled, imposing body. The clear battle-scars on his arms. The confident stance. His impressive height.

 

 

This was going to be… fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A smile bloomed on Diana's face. Korra's body wasn't exactly unattractive, but it was different from the gentle curves and more feminine features Diana was used to. Still, she tried her best.

"I'm looking for the fire-boy," she said, a hand subtly trailing down her body in a way meant to draw the eye.

_Please don't be gay. Please don't be good at your job. Please be interested in teenage girls._

Ugh, that last one put nasty images in her head.

The doorman's frown deepened. "You're not allowed to be here, or to see the ex-bender." He said that last term with quite a bit of relish.

Diana straightened, trying for something between imperious and alluring. "Listen, sir, Amon and the Equalists have an interesting philosophy, but before I decide to join and to support the movement, I want to look at that… ex-bender, and ensure he wasn't just an actor Amon paid so he could pretend he really has the ability to take bending away."

_How long do I have before Tenzin's distraction, again?_

The guard blinked, before his nose wrinkled. "You think that bender was an actor?" His jaw clenched. "He isn't! How could you _think_ that? Amon's powers are real. He just showed them to everyone, and he's still doing it right now!"

Diana rolled her eyes as if she found all this quite tedious. "Yes, that's what you think, but I want proof. It would be easy for the man to pay some random bender to fight him, gasp dramatically and then shout that he's lost his bending. I want to examine this ex-bender myself. And if Amon really does have an ability to take bending away, I still want to examine this fire-bender. What if Amon's power kills those he uses them on, leaving them slowly dying for a few years before they expire? What if taking someone's bending affects their brain or their body? What if they become sterile, or the loss of their bending causes any children they might have to be born deformed?"

The doorman was looking overwhelmed, eyes wide as he just stared at her, trying to interject but incapable of getting a word in.

"What if the lack of bending causes their immune system to shut down," Diana continued with determination, "and the first microbial parasite the body encounters is enough to kill it? Bending is an integral part of their bodies, and without an effective immune system they might suffer from psoriasis, multiple sclerosis or Type I diabetes. Autoimmune diseases are no joke. I want proof that Amon's powers exist, and that they have no side-effects. I want to know how many tests he's made, and I want to be sure that if I join the movement, I am _not_ joining a movement of a man whose powers might have debilitating side-effects."

The guard's mouth opened and closed. Then… "Are you some sort of doctor?" he asked.

"A scientist," Diana corrected with a sniff.

An economist could be considered a scientist, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_… Right?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it didn't matter, as there was no way to save the situation without a few lies.

The guard nodded to himself and put his cigarette away. He eyed her up and down.

"Right… I'll take you to him. That way you can see for yourself that Amon really has been graced by the spirits."

Diana offered him a sweet smile. "Thank you, that's all I ask."

The doorman brought Diana to a small room. It was the size of Diana's bedroom at Tenzin's place, but this room had bare walls and no furniture. A cell with a door instead of bars.

Mako was down on his knees, head bowed and hands bound. He was trembling.

Guarding him were two men dressed in the standard uniform of the Equalists, in shades of dark grey and burgundy, wearing black masks that were uncomfortably reminiscent of gas masks, with glowing yellow lenses covering the eyes and a large red circle sewn on the forehead area.

Those Equalists were like the faceless evil goons you'd see working for a supervillain in a Marvel movie. They all looked the same and didn't feel like real people with their own lives and desires. They looked like the kind of mooks a superhero could mow down without even thinking about the fact that he'd be killing people.

The two guards didn't ask any questions. They just looked at Diana and the doorman for a second, and then dismissed them.

Being accompanied by the doorman probably helped Diana look like she belonged.

The doorman just stood there and didn't introduce her, so she grit her teeth at the rudeness and took care of things herself.

"I'll be examining the ex-bender," she informed the two guards.

Mako flinched, eyeing her warily out of the corners of his eyes.

Diana only had eyes for the two guards. She hadn't asked them anything, she'd just told them she'd be examining Mako. Asking for permission gave the guards a chance to say no, and stating her intentions made it look like she was allowed to be there. If the doorman kept his mouth shut, the two guards might even believe she was a fellow Equalist that had been ordered to examine Mako.

And her use of the word 'ex-bender' only helped along the idea that she was a fellow Equalist. Hopefully the word wasn't the local equivalent of an enormous insult. It sounded innocuous, but who knew.

The guards themselves didn't say anything, so Diana knelt at Mako's side.

_Tenzin's distraction will be going off any minute. Now, how will I help Mako escape with so many Equalists in the room…?_

Face blank of emotion, Diana put a hand on Mako's forehead, though the young man tried to lean away from her, chin trembling. While he did appear to have been sweating excessively, it probably had more to do with stress of fear than Amon's powers making him sick.

She paused, trying to think of the most complicated sounding words she knew to make herself look like a genuine health expert.

"Has this young man experienced any emesis or complained about pain due to noxious stimulus?"

"Huh?" was the noise made my one of the guards, frowning down at her.

Diana sighed, looking at the two guards as though they were all dumb, uneducated lumps of meat. "I asked," she repeated, "if the ex-bender" — Mako flinched, shaking and shivering under her hand. — "has been vomiting or complained about any pain after facing Amon."

"I don't think so, ma'am," one of the guards said, fidgeting under Diana's unimpressed stare. "He was having a bit of trouble walking, but—"

At that moment, Tenzin's distraction _finally_ came.

The sound of a great crash was heard, as well as meaningless shouting.

"The police must have found our location!" Diana shouted. She pointed at the doorman. "You, go help civilians escape before they're arrested for daring to support Amon." The man nodded and hurried out of the room. Diana turned to the two men guarding Mako. "And you two, go help Amon! If he's defeated now, the cause will be over before it even begins!"

"B-but," one of the guards said, "we were ordered to keep an eye on the prisoner."

Diana stared at him, a sneer appearing. "Are you seriously arguing right now? The place is under attack! Protecting Amon and the loyal members of the cause is more important than some criminal _ex-bender_."

The guard was still indecisive, so she continued, hands sweaty:

"If it's such a problem, I'll keep an eye on him. I can't fight as well as you can, so I would be useless against the police." The guard still wasn't obeying, and his friend hadn't even taken a step towards the door.

Another huge crash was heard, as well as shouts.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Diana demanded. "Go and help!"

And finally, the guards obeyed, leaving her alone with Mako.

Now for the easy part.

"Up you go, dear," she said, reaching down to pull him up.

The young man cringed away from her. Only his hands were bound, so with his feet he easily managed to push himself back a bit, far from her. He was looking at her like she was the Grim Reaper himself.

This was clearly not going to work. So, voice lowered, she said:

"Your brother Bolin sent me to help you escape. Now come on before the guards return!"

Mako's eyes widened. "Bolin? He.. He found me?" His voice was tremulous.

This time he let her pull him up. He was still too dazed to stand on his own, so she had to do all the work. Had Diana been in her own body, she would not have managed to pull him up. But Korra's body had the sort of musculature that allowed Diana to do it with no trouble. It was convenient, but still a reminder that she wasn't where she should be. She wasn't _who_ she should be.

"Yes. Now come, he's creating a distraction so you can escape!"

She didn't bother mentioning Tenzin. Mako wouldn't know who he was, and there wasn't enough time to explain.

Mako frowned, letting himself be pulled out of the room. "He's creating a distraction?" His eyes widened. "I have to help him!" He struggled out of her grip but almost immediately tripped, still weak from whatever Amon had done to him.

Diana just stared at him. She was remembering shōnen protagonists and their typical behaviour. Her mind turned to anime, where characters were often so ridiculously self-sacrificial that they became dumb beyond measure. Was Legend of Korra an anime or a cartoon? She couldn't remember, but suddenly it was feeling like an important detail to know, if only so she could spot the clichés of the genre.

"You are weak and helpless," she told Mako bluntly. "If you go to fight, you'll be useless. Bolin will be joining us outside in ten minutes according to our plan. He won't be able to make a quick escape if he has to look out for his idiot brother."

Mako glared at her, lips tight and nose wrinkled. "He's my little brother. He won't be able to hold his own against that many people."

Gosh, the guy really _was_ full of himself, wasn't he? How would he even contribute to a fight without the ability to shoot fireballs from his fingers?

She crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one leg, jutting her chin out defiantly. "You're coming with me whether you like it or not. Your bro isn't alone—there's a bending master I know helping him fight. Now move your fucking butt before the guards come back and kill us both!"

He started to stand, but he was too slow for her tastes. Thoroughly done with being patient, she used Korra's impressive strength to pull him up and along with him through a long corridor. The walls were covered in pipes. Some had a bit of water or steam escaping them.

A guard passed by them at a run, and slowed down when he noticed them.

Mako flinched none too subtly.

Pulse racing, Diana pointed back in the direction of the stage and shouted, "Some crazy benders are attacking everyone in there! Amon's holding them off but I don't know if he's gonna make it!"

Appropriately worried, the Equalist shot off, leaving them behind.

Mako stared after him with wide eyes. "Why… Wha—"

Diana shook her head. "No time. We gotta go."

They ran.

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

The meeting point was a street full of bars of ill repute. It was at the edge of the industrial district where the rally had been held but was far enough that it was unlikely any Equalists would be there. And if anything did happen, the street was crowded with enough witnesses to make a potential attacker hesitate.

"Where are we heading?" Mako asked.

He was standing on his own now, looking a bit more confident in himself. His body-language, though… It still held hints of defensiveness. His arms were kept close to the body as if to protect his abdomen. Mako was hunched on himself, and he was pretending he wasn't furtively looking at their surroundings as if Amon was about to come back and finish the job.

"Bar. It's the meeting place."

Diana tugged him along towards a bar with its walls painted bright yellow, unlike all the others which looked dark and grimy. It was also where she was supposed to meet up with Bolin and Tenzin.

They settled down at a table in the back of the establishment, far from the rowdy drunks, and waited.

And waited.

After ten minutes of waiting, Diana started to worry. She didn't let it show, though, to keep Mako from leaving and trying to find them himself.

When the fifteen minutes mark passed, Diana began tapping a finger against the wood of the table. Had she been in her own body, the sound would have been sharp, her long, manicured nail tapping against a flat surface. But Korra's hands were rough and lightly scared, fingers broad where Diana's had been elegant, and the nails too short and mistreated to look good.

Diana hated it.

She hated that her body was that of a fighter, with dry skin, dull hair full of split ends and not enough in the bust area.

Her own body hadn't been amazing, with a little bit too much weight around the abdomen that she usually hid with the right clothes, but she'd been proud of herself. She used to spend an hour weaving her hair in an intricate braid and putting on subtle touches of makeup on and just why did she have to end up as someone like Korra of all people—

"They're here!" Mako exclaimed, grabbing Diana's arm _(no, it's_ ** _Korra's_** _arm you_ _disgusting_ _body-thief)_ and pointing at the entrance.

Indeed, Bolin and Tenzin had appeared at the entrance of the bar. They looked winded, their clothes a little battered and the beginning of bruises on their skin, but they were alive, and when they saw Mako and Diana, they smiled.

Bolin all but ran towards them, swerving gracefully out of the way of other people until he was at their table. In one smooth motion Mako stood and the brothers embraced.

Diana observed the whole scene, feeling a little… detached. She was an only child, and had a hard time empathizing. Kidnapping was something she was vehemently against, just like other crimes such as rape and murder, so it was only natural she would help Bolin get his brother back. Her main reason hadn't been so altruistic—she'd seen a main character of the _Legend of Korra_ series and had decided to stick to him like glue because she knew he would have been an important sidekick for the protagonist and thus, would be useful to her.

Tenzin finally caught up, stopping near Diana and observing the two brothers as they rejoiced.

"Have you ordered anything to drink?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "I wasn't sure if we'd stay long enough to enjoy a drink."

 _And I don't have any money,_ she didn't say. _I'm entirely reliant on you for any purchases. Like a child._

He nodded. "I'll order us some refreshments."

"No alcohol for me, please," she requested. "Other than that, I'm not picky."

She'd had bad experiences with an alcoholic parent as a child, and consequently had grown up to be the kind of stick in the mud who absolutely refused to drink any alcohol, even when going out to eat with clients or when she was at networking events. A part of her was deathly afraid that if she got used to the taste of alcohol, she might… Well.

Tenzin raised an eyebrow. "That's good of you to say, Korra, but I wouldn't have gotten you alcohol anyway. You're a bit too young for that."

 

 

 

Oh.

 

 

 

Right.

 

 

 

Korra was a teenager, wasn't she?

How embarrassing to forget that.

 

 

 

As Tenzin left, the two brothers stopped hugging and sat next to one another at the table. They stayed close, and Mako was leaning towards Bolin, a hand on his little brother's forearm.

 _Cute_ , Diana thought.

"Did you guys get into any trouble on your way out?" Bolin asked, looking at Diana.

"No, it was fine." By staying vague, hopefully it would make him believe she'd fought her way out with ease like the real Korra would have, and hadn't been relying on lies and luck to succeed.

"We were nearly caught," Mako said, causing Diana's left eye to twitch _(that eye belongs to Korra you bitch)_ , "but she lied and made it look like she was one of them and had a reason to be doing what she was doing, and they believed her."

Bolin whistled. "Wow, impressive."

Mako just shrugged, staring despondently down at the table's glossy surface. "I guess."

Crossing her arms, Diana stared at Mako with a barely perceptible frown. "You don't seem very happy for someone who was just rescued."

Mako glared at her. "Well _gee_ , I wonder why. It's not like my workplace was bombed, making me effectively jobless. It's not like my bending was just _taken from me_ , which means I've got next to no marketable skills since I only have my shitty education to rely on and I don't have enough money for next month's rent. It's not like the leader of the Triple Tee hasn't been de-bended too, which might put the city in a gang war if the truce doesn't hold and the other gangs decide to take over the TTT's territory. So really, I can only _wonder_ why I'm not smiling at all the flowers and rainbows the world has been throwing at me."

"I'm not responsible for any of that," Diana responded calmly without so much as blinking. "The world's not fair and you shouldn't expect otherwise. If you fall, you're allowed to whine about it, but eventually you'll have to pick yourself up and keep on walking."

With narrowed eyes, Mako just glared harder. "I spent _years_ working on my bending. I didn't decide to learn several skills half-heartedly. I focused only on my bending and made it my strongest point, the most marketable part about me. My ability to bend lightning got me a job at a power plant, over dozens of other candidates, and my fire-bending got me into pro-bending and got me my job at the restaurant. And now, the skill I've been working on for years is **gone**. What the _hell_ am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to earn enough money to get by?"

She... She didn't know what to say. The fear of being jobless, of ending up on the street, was one she knew. She still remembered her first job and how little it had paid. She'd lived with several roommates for a while, unable to afford living alone, and had always declined when invited to go out with friends because she couldn't afford it. That had happened years ago, when she'd finished university, but she could still remember it keenly.

"Your years won't be wasted," she said, the start of an idea appearing. "I'll ask Tenzin if he can take you in. His island is huge, full of empty houses. It shouldn't be any trouble."

"…Tenzin?" asked Mako, still looking at her doubtfully.

"He's an air-bender—"

"Ah, the councilman," said Mako with a nod to himself.

"—and he's been training me."

"Are you…?" Mako frowned at her, staring at her inquisitively. "You don't look like an Air Nomad, and I think his children are still kids. Are you… the Avatar?"

"Yes. That doesn't mean Tenzin will do anything I say, but I'm pretty sure he'll agree to take you in. It's likely he'll make you do chores to earn your keep, but that's all. He's a good guy."

 _Besides,_ she thought, eyeing the two brothers, _I think you two will help me solve a problem that's been annoying me for a while now._

 

 

 

-x-x-x-

 

 

 

After Mako and Bolin had left, Diana sipped her drink in silence, looking at Tenzin.

The man ignored her rude staring and focused on dropping a spoonful of sugar in his tea, which he then slowly mixed in.

"It's very kind of you," Diana said. "To take them in, I mean. I didn't expect you to agree so easily."

Tenzin hummed, bringing his tea up to his lips and blowing softly. "They're young, still. And besides…"

Diana raised her eyebrows. "Hm?"

"My father had my mother and my uncle to help him when he travelled the world on his quest to end the war."

Wow. Who was Tenzin's dad, again? The man sounded _badass_.

"Most Avatars have had companions to help them," Tenzin continued.

Oh, right. Tenzin's dad was the Avatar before Korra. There was even a huge statue of him on a small island by the bay, making Republic City a New York look-alike.

"And you hope Bolin and his brother will be that for me?" Diana asked.

She could vaguely remember that they were important characters, and she was pretty sure they were meant to be Korra's sidekicks. One of the two was probably in a romantic relationship with Korra in the cartoon. Probably Mako, since he was the most attractive. Though Diana had a hard time seeing it. It was a bit mean to say so, but the way he'd flinched at everything and trembled like a leaf after being made an ex-bender kind of made him look a little… pathetic.

Maybe Korra was into that sort of thing? Perhaps in canon there was a whole arc with Korra caring for poor Mako while he got used to life as a normal, non-powered human?

Tenzin nodded. "I doubt you'll have to do anything on the same scale as what my father did. The world is at peace, and I don't think we will see another large war take over the world anytime soon. But having companions will be good for you, Korra. You don't spend enough time with people your age. You are always training with me or doing community work for Lin. Spending some time with other teenagers could be beneficial."

Back in her own world, Diana had a large purple vein near her temple. She always felt self-conscious about it and would hide it with foundation, but whenever she got angry or annoyed the vein would pop out, a very visible sign of her emotional state.

She was pretty sure that if she were in her own body, that vein would be protruding right now.

Spending time with adolescents? The idea made her want to frown. Teenagers that were mentally mature were good enough company, she supposed, but most people at that age were shallow idiots. However, considering she was, for all intents and purposes, a teenager herself at the moment, befriending adults would appear odd to onlookers.

"Thank you for your consideration," was all she said.

One of the drunks at the bar laughed particularly loudly at that moment, drawing attention. Tenzin stayed unruffled, holding his tea like he was about to use it as a focus for meditation.

"Tomorrow we'll have to go to the police department early," Tenzin said. "They'll have noticed the ruckus and probably made a few arrests. We'll need to make a statement and tell them what we saw."

Diana gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "How do you think they'll react when we tell them what Amon can do?"

Tenzin sighed, rubbing his forehead. "They won't be happy. The city's in a delicate state right now, and that kind of news won't help things." He paused. "They'll probably expect you to do another press conference to talk about it. You're the Avatar — if you're linked to something this important, the people will want to know."

"It's probably best if I tell them my version of the fact before they create their own."

"Quite."

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, Republic City is actually closer to dieselpunk than steampunk though it has elements from both, but since dieselpunk isn't as well-known, Diana hasn't heard of it and calls the style of the universe steampunk instead.
> 
> I left a little Easter egg in this chapter, a reference to the DDLC game. Did anyone catch it?


End file.
